Alongside new efforts, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo releases new blog post detailing how Treasury Department programs have helped keep families in their homes and contributed to housing construction and preservation
WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced new efforts to increase the supply of housing in the year ahead. These efforts include:
- Updated guidance for the American Rescue Plan’s (ARP) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) to make it easier for recipients to use remaining funds to construct affordable housing;
- New clarifications to the ARP’s Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program which will make clear that qualifying recipients can use remaining funds on a broad range of uses to fund affordable housing serving very low-income families; and
- An extension of the Federal Financing Bank’s (FFB) financing support for a risk-sharing initiative between the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and state and local housing finance agencies in order to lower the cost of creating and preserving affordable housing.
These announcements build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Housing Supply Action Plan to boost the nation’s stock of affordable housing and lower housing costs, including through new actions announced last week.
Over the past three years, the speed and strength of the Biden-Harris Administration’s pandemic response helped to thwart the worst economic outcomes anticipated from the COVID shock and fostered the fastest – and fairest – economic recovery in recent history. During this recovery, the Treasury Department encouraged communities to address housing supply needs by making innovative use of ARP funds, complementing Administration-wide efforts to help families across the country remain in their homes, including increased options for mortgage payment forbearance, enhanced loan modifications to resolve delinquencies, and a foreclosure moratorium. The Treasury Department has also supported the construction of new affordable housing through tax incentives, such as the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the largest source of federal support for construction and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing across the country, and community development programs like the Capital Magnet Fund. The combination of these programs has resulted in historically low foreclosure and eviction rates, and has increased the supply of and access to affordable housing.