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Housing Advocates Applaud Creation of National Housing Trust Fund to Benefit Low Income Households
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008WASHINGTON, DC– The Center
for Community Change joins the National Low Income Housing Coalition and its
allies in celebrating a major victory on behalf of low income people. Today,
President Bush signed into law the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure
Prevention Act into law. Among numerous provisions, the Act establishes a
permanent, affordable national housing trust fund that will benefit households
of very low income.
The Act is the first new
federal housing production program since the HOME program was created in 1990
and the first new production program specifically targeted to extremely low
income households since the Section 8 program was created in 1974. Funds for the
Housing Trust Fund will come from annual contributions made by Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac.
The housing trust fund would
dedicate 90 percent of its funds for families in rental properties and 10
percent for home ownership, and 75 percent of the funds must be used for the
benefit of families whose incomes are at or below 30 percent of the area median
and all funds must benefit households with incomes less than 50 percent of the
median.
“This fund will help the people
who truly need it the most,” said Mary Brooks, director of the Center’s Housing
Trust Fund Project. “The need for affordable housing remains acute in this
country. The passage of this bill is
recognition not only of the crisis in our housing industry today, but also of
the integral role affordable housing plays in the health of every community.
This victory underscores that when we come together as a nation, we can
succeed.”
The Center for Community Change,
through its special initiative, the Housing Trust Fund Project, has been a
leader in creating local and state housing trust funds throughout the country
since the mid-1980s, providing information and technical assistance to community
based groups and housing advocates.
The national housing trust fund
builds on some 600 local and state housing trust funds established throughout
this country. Housing advocates have
worked since 2000 to create a national housing trust fund
For more information or for
interview opportunities, please contact Mary Moreno
at (202) 339-9316 or mmoreno@communitychange.org.
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The Center for Community Change is a nonprofit, nonpartisan low income advocacy group that promotes the development of community organizing as a national force for social and economic justice. More information on the Center can be found at www.communitychange.org.
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