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HUD recently sent a letter to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner stating that it found the city in noncompliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. HUD asserted that the city’s refusal to issue a Resolution of No Objection for a mixed-income, 233-unit apartment building to be racially motivated. HUD concluded that the city’s procedure for approving proposed projects for financing through the LIHTC program to be influenced by racially motivated opposi...

A recent HUD report, Housing Needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives Living in Urban Areas, finds American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIANs) in metropolitan areas have a higher incidence of housing cost burdens, overcrowding, and other housing problems than the general metropolitan population. The report is based on interviews with staff from social service organizations serving the AIAN population and analysis of data from the decennial census, the American Commu...

In a recent op-ed published by The Hill, John Vogel, an adjunct professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and an associate faculty director for the school’s Center for Business, Government & Society and whose research focuses on real estate, affordable housing, and social entrepreneurship, noted the lack of any viable replacement for the LIHTC program were it eliminated.

An increasing number of local news reports have been contemplating the effect of President-elect Trump’s proposed tax policies on affordable housing. Specifically, many worry how his plan to slash the corporate rate, if fulfilled, would limit the expansion of much-needed affordable housing. President-elect Trump campaigned on a top tax rate of 15 percent for corporations. And in their tax reform “blueprint,” House Republicans have targeted a lower top ...

The National Housing Law Project (NHLP) has released the 2016 edition of Housing Rights of Domestic Violence Survivors: A State and Local Law Compendium. It contains state and local laws that provide safeguards for domestic violence survivors who seek to obtain or maintain housing. The updated compendium includes laws enacted as of October 2016.

The Green Urbanism Program of Global Green USA has released its 2016 analysis of state Qualified Allocation Plans. Its report analyzes Green Building criteria in the low-income housing tax credit program. Ohio was the only state to receive a perfect score while Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C. all received As and Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Washington, Colorado, California and Indiana received A- scores. Wisconsin and Texas received the only Fs.

President-elect Trump recently announced that he will nominate Dr. Ben Carson as the new secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Dr. Carson is a former Republican candidate for president and served as the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland from 1984 until his retirement in 2013.

A new paper recently published by The Brookings Institution looked at how hospitals and schools can play a major role in helping to enhance health and long-term economic mobility in a community. According to the authors, policymakers have become increasingly aware in recent years that achieving good health and economic vitality in neighborhoods requires the close collaboration of a variety of sectors, including housing, education, and social services.

New Yorkers are at risk of losing thousands of new, affordable housing units if state officials fail to provide $2 billion in housing funds that have been languishing since the state budget was passed on April 1. The $2 billion was promised in a memorandum of understanding (MOU), but the governor and state legislative leaders have been unable to reach an agreement to allocate the housing funds.

The IRS recently published Revenue Procedure 2016-55, which outlines the inflation adjustments for nearly 50 federal tax provisions, including the amount of Low Income Housing Tax Credit (Housing Credit) authority and Private Activity Bond (PAB) authority each state will receive.

For calendar year 2017, the state Housing Credit ceiling will be the greater of $2.35 multiplied by the state’s population or $2,710,000. While the per capita ceiling remained at th...