Tag Archives: LIHTC

Housing Policy and Justice

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John Infranca has posted Housing Resource Bundles:Distributive Justice and Federal Low-Income Housing Policy to SSRN. The abstract reads,

Only one in four eligible households receives some form of rental assistance from the federal government. Nonetheless, there is no time limit for the receipt of this assistance; individuals can continue to receive benefits as long as they satisfy eligibility requirements. In addition, individuals who do obtain assistance frequently have higher incomes than those denied it. Beyond simply providing housing, federal rental assistance is enlisted to serve a myriad of additional policy goals — including furthering economic integration and providing access to better neighborhoods — that can exacerbate inequities between those who receive benefits and those denied assistance. These broader objectives often increase the cost of housing assistance and reduce the number of households served.

Given increasingly limited resources and the growing demand for rental assistance, difficult decisions must be made regarding how to satisfy a range of conflicting programmatic goals. Although for at least four decades legal scholars, economists, public policy experts, and politicians have denounced the inequities in existing housing policy, no one has provided a detailed analysis of the specific ways in which this policy departs from norms of distributive justice and of how it might be made more equitable. This Article moves the conversation beyond simply decrying existing inequities and instead carefully analyzes federal housing policy in light of specific theories of distributive justice. Drawing on the philosophical literature, it evaluates the specifics of existing policies, and their distributional impacts, in light of five theories of distributive justice. It then proposes a new structure for federal rental assistance, which would allow recipients to choose among a set of “housing resource bundles.” This approach will not only satisfy the most salient understandings of distributive justice, but will also advance the concerns that underpin other distributive justice theories and allow federal housing policy to more effectively embrace a plurality of programmatic goals.

I was particularly intrigued by one (modest?) proposal:

A commitment to distributing all federal housing assistance to provide for equality of resources would demand that the housing resource bundle approach be put in place for all citizens. Each individual would be limited in the total amount of housing assistance they could receive during their lifetime. All citizens would receive an equal sum of housing resources, either through direct rental assistance or a deduction of mortgage interest (or some combination). This would result in a substantial change in the allocation of resources, resulting in a more equitable distribution of all federal housing assistance. (62-63)

This proposal highlights the extent to which federal housing policy heavily favors upper-income households which benefit greatly from the mortgage interest deduction. The proposal also highlights a limitation of the article.  While it it makes clear that housing policy violates norms of distributive justice, it does not chart a practical course to achieve political change in an environment where the mortgage interest deduction is one of the most heavily protected federal tax expenditures. That being said, the article helps to clarify what is at stake in debates over federal housing policy and provides some intellectual clarity for those who study it.

Who Benefits from the Low Income Housing Tax Credit?

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HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research has released a report, Understanding  Whom  the  LIHTC  Program  Serves: Tenants  in  LIHTC  Units  as  of  December  31,  2012. By way of background,

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Program provides tax credits to developers of affordable rental housing. The tax credits are provided during the first 10 years of a minimum 30-year compliance period during which rent and income restrictions apply. The LIHTC Program, although established in the U.S. Internal Revenue Code (IRC), is structured such that state-allocating agencies administer most aspects of the program, including income and rent compliance, with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) providing oversight and guidance. Local administration allows states to address affordable housing needs specific to their populations. (1)

 Here are some findings of note:

  • Approximately three-fourths of reported households include disability status for at least one household member.
  • 36.4 percent of reported LIHTC households had a least one member under 18 years old.
  • Nearly 33 percent of reported LIHTC households have an elderly member, and 28.6 percent of reported LIHTC households have a head of household at least 62 years old.
  • The overall median annual income of households living in LIHTC units was $17,066, ranging from $8,769 in Kentucky to $22,241 in Florida. By comparison, the median income of HUD-assisted tenants was $10,272 in 2012.
  • Approximately 60 percent of reported households nationwide had incomes below $20,000.
  • The study found that approximately 39 percent of all LIHTC households paid more than 30 percent of their income for rent, thus making them housing cost burdened. Ten percent of all LIHTC households faced a severe housing cost burden, paying more than 50 percent of their income towards rent.
  • In 23 states, HUD was able to collect some data on the use of rental assistance in LIHTC units, which can eliminate cost burden for households who have it. Approximately half of reported households receive some form of rental assistance, with the greatest use in Vermont (64 percent) and least use in Nevada (23 percent).

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 requires that this information be collected on an ongoing basis. It should be of great value as policymakers formulate federal housing policy for low-income households going forward.

Housing Subsidies For Those Who Need Them

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The National Low Income Housing Coalition has posted Aligning Federal Low Income Housing Programs with Housing Need. The Executive Summary goes right to the heart of the matter:

The number of renters in the United States has steadily increased since 2006 and will continue to rise as new households form in the post-recession economy. In 2012, one out of four renter households had incomes at or below 30% of the area median income (AMI) for a total of 10.3 million households categorized as extremely low income (ELI). In the same year there were just 3.2 million units affordable and available to ELI households, creating a shortage of 7.1 million rental units affordable to these households.

Despite this evidence of a substantial need for deeply affordable rental housing, the low income housing resources that are provided by the federal government are only able to reach 23% of the eligible population. (iii)
This study looks at the extent to which the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the HOME program and the Federal Home Loan Banks’ Affordable Housing Program (AHP) serve ELI households. It finds that in general, “these three programs do not serve ELI households on their own. Their ability to serve ELI households depends on the addition of one or more forms of subsidy, usually housing choice vouchers (HCV).” (iii)
The study identifies common themes from its research on this topic:
  • Developers layer multiple funding sources while adapting to rapidly changing political and fiscal environments. Many also rely on non-traditional resources, such as private donations, to fill funding gaps.
  • Reducing or eliminating mortgage debt is critical to be able to serve ELI households.
  • Cultivating strong local partnerships is a key factor affecting developers’ ability to serve ELI households. Often, local jurisdictions that have prioritized affordable housing are willing to donate land or property at a low cost.
  • Cross-subsidization is an important strategy used by many developers committed to inclusive properties that serve ELI households. This strategy incorporates units affordable to ELI households into projects containing other units occupied by households with a broader mix of incomes. The rents paid by higher income households supplement the overall operating expenses of the project, compensating for the lower rents that ELI households can afford.
  • While the case studies highlighted some very effective strategies for serving ELI households without the use of vouchers, there is not one model that can be easily replicated. (iii-iv)

None of this is particularly earth shattering, but it is useful to to look into this topic in a systematic way. The Coalition hopes that this report “will contribute to the broader conversation about simplifying the process of financing affordable housing developments, refining existing programs so that they incentivize developers to serve ELI households, and finding ways to fund the ongoing operating costs of units that do serve ELI renters.” (iv)

As an off-the-cuff response, I wonder if the nation’s affordable housing agenda is benefited from such a complex funding environment for housing for extremely low income households. Can it just be funded more comprehensively, acknowledging the reality that it requires deep subsidies from the get-go? What is the opportunity cost of requiring developers to devote so much time to creating such complicated deal structures? In the current political environment, I doubt that affordable housing advocates have the stomach to raise these questions, lest Congress decides to cut back affordable housing subsidies even further. But in the long term, these are questions worth asking.

Preserving Low-Income Housing

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NYC Mayor De Blasio announced an aggressive goal of producing and preserving 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next ten years. New York City will need to be as creative as possible to achieve this goal and will need to look to all of the resources that it has at its disposal to achieve it. Enterprise Community Partners released Preserving Housing Credit Investment: The State of Housing Credit Properties and Lessons Learned for the Extended Use Period. This report looks at important component of a preservation agenda: Low-Income Housing Tax Credit buildings that “reach the end of their initial 15-year compliance period.” (4) The report presents data about LIHTC buildings during the 15-year “extended use period” that follow the compliance period

and shares how some state and local housing agencies around the country are addressing the post-Year 15 Housing Credit properties. While the condition of the Housing Credit portfolio at Year 15 is strong, as properties age into a second 15-year period of rent restrictions and beyond, the ability for some of those properties to be able to afford to make improvements while maintaining affordability is clearly a challenge. Some of these local best practices point to solutions demonstrating programmatic and regulatory flexibility, new resources as well as resyndication where appropriate. (4)

Across the nation, roughly 100,000 units of housing age out of the initial compliance period each year, so we are talking about a lot of housing.  New York has a significant portion of that housing stock. While these properties are in pretty good condition overall, the report found that

very limited financing choices exist throughout the extended use period for properties with modest recapitalization or capital improvement needs. Currently, the best choice seems to be a resyndication with a new Housing Credit allocation. However, the use of Housing Credits to preserve and extend the affordability of existing affordable housing competes with other Housing Credit properties, including public housing revitalization and new projects (both as adaptive reuse of existing buildings and new construction). The Housing Credit was created to address affordable housing needs that the private market could not effectively serve. It incentivized a public-private partnership that includes affordability for 30 years. In order to preserve this inventory, more investment will be required. Ensuring the physical and economic stability of these assets through their extended use periods will require innovative uses of limited public subsidy by states and municipalities. (5)

New York City will certainly want to plan for the modest recapitalization of its LIHTC properties as part of its affordable housing strategy. And it will be better to plan for it now than pay too much for deferred maintenance down the line.