The Democratic Congress: implications for affordable housing
Yesterday, after a twelve-year interval whose beginning caught the entire Democratic establishment by surprise and whose ending they have long awaited, the Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives (and quite possibly also the Senate).
Will it be printed blue?
With the House’s generally more partisan mindset and protocols, this means that the Democrats, in addition to controlling the legislative topical agenda, will be able to pass legislation and send it over Capitol Hill to the Senate for consideration. While little of this legislation is likely to be enacted into law, it will set the tone for the 2008 election cycle.
This is good news for affordable housing, because affordable housing normally ranks higher among Democratic priorities than Republican ones, and with few exceptions, the incoming House Democratic committee chairs are much more knowledgeable about affordable housing and more positively disposed toward it than their Republican predecessors. It is also quite generally a shift in the House’s emphasis from rural to urban voices.
Even if relatively little change is enacted, the issues of affordable housing and urban infrastructure are likely to command substantially increased visibility.
Five areas likely to see greater (and different) emphasis will include:
Can we see the shape of the hand?
- GSE regulation. Prospects for enacting something are fair in 2007, and surprisingly good in the 2006 lame-duck session.
- Public housing. Given the necessity for reinventing public housing (see Web Update 55), there’s a good chance we will see reform legislation that offers public housing authorities voluntary options to recapitalize and reposition some of their properties.
- The HUD inventory. Funding pressure on Section 8 (and proposals for devolving control away from the federal government) will remain implacable, and the exodus of individual properties out of HUD regulation via the handful of individual initiatives will continue. Bolder moves — such as downsizing HUD further — will likely await a new Administration (from whichever party).
- Workforce housing. Though a workforce housing tax credit (see Web Update 58) is not on the cards any time soon, it should become a campaign issue and most likely a plank in the eventual Democratic platform.
- Tax credits. The existing LIHTC has long-standing bipartisan support in its current form, but proponents of expansion tend to be Democratic, so we may also see proposals to deepen affordability targeting or expand LIHTC production.
You can find much more on Web Update 59 over at Recap’s web site.
