Biden-Harris Administration and HUD mark milestones in first-time homeownership, taking on racial discrimination in housing, delivering rental assistance, and building climate-resilient homes, and advancing a more equitable housing finance system.
When this Administration began, conditions were bleak. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans could not access quality, safe, and affordable housing options. Three years later, under the leadership of Secretary Marcia L. Fudge, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has made historic strides to provide direct housing assistance, expand opportunities for homeownership and affordable rental housing, build climate-resilient communities, and root out discrimination in housing.
Specifically:
- HUD has housed people through 120,000 new incremental vouchers in a three-year period, a 20-year record.
- The Federal Housing Administration has cut costs for homeowners and brought first-time homebuyers into the fold, achieving the first-time homebuyer rate at the highest it has been in over two decades.
- HUD has addressed the legacies of racial discrimination in housing.
- New investments will build for the future, ensuring communities are resilient to the effects of the climate crisis, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and low-income residents of color, which are often hit the hardest.
- Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) supported a record high of over $2.5 trillion in current government lending, by providing liquidity in the housing finance system and facilitating the flow of more investment capital into US housing markets.
“I could not be prouder to serve an Administration and a Department that is expanding access to affordable housing like never before,” said HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “In the midst of a tough housing market, the need has never been greater for our assistance. But we are working to meet the challenge. From broadening homeownership opportunities for first-time homebuyers, to taking on discrimination in housing, we are making a real impact on those we serve.”
See HUD’s funding impact across the U.S.:
- Significant Levels of Rental Assistance:
- HUD has awarded roughly 120,000 new incremental housing vouchers – a milestone number – including new Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH), Family Unification Program/Foster Youth to Independence (FUP/FYI), Mainstream, Stability Vouchers, Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHV), and flexible Housing Choice Vouchers.
- HUD helped launch the White House Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights. Based on initiatives in the blueprint, HUD announced $10 million for tenant education and outreach.
- In a brand-new effort to curb evictions, the Department also announced a proposed rule to require public housing agencies (PHA) with tenants in public housing and owners of properties participating in HUD Multifamily project-based rental assistance programs to provide their tenants with written notification at least 30 days prior to filing for an eviction due to nonpayment of rent.
- Funded legal assistance to over 19,000 low-income tenant households at risk of, or subject to, eviction by doubling funding for the Eviction Protection Grant program – a first of its kind program funded in 2022.
- Tribal housing has received milestone increases in funding. This includes investing more than $1 billion for housing in Tribal communities through the Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) Formula program, the IHBG Competitive program, the Indian Community Development Block Grant program, and the Native Hawaiian Housing Block Grant program.
- High Rate of First-Time Homebuyers:
- FHA’s first-time homebuyer rate under the Biden-Harris Administration is the highest it has been since at least 2000. Since the start of the Administration, FHA has supported nearly 1.8 million homeowners with purchase mortgages, and 83.6 percent or 1.5 million of whom are first-time homebuyers.
- This past year alone, more than four out of every five borrowers with FHA-insured mortgages are first-time homebuyers, while in the market as a whole, fewer than half of mortgages are made to first-time homebuyers.
- Ginnie Mae’s portfolio supports first-time homebuyers across government lending programs, supporting financing for 2.2 million first-time home buyers from FHA, VA, USDA, and PIH since the start of the Administration.
- Noteworthy Policies to Root Out Discrimination in Housing:
- HUD is working on a final rule regarding Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, meaningfully implementing the Fair Housing Act to address significant disparities in housing needs for members of protected classes.
- HUD also restored the Discriminatory Effects Rule, a vital tool to protect fair housing and address policies that unnecessarily cause systemic inequality in housing, regardless of whether they were adopted with discriminatory intent.
- To support second chances and successful reentry for people leaving incarceration, HUD plans to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that will require providers of HUD-assisted housing to use an individualized approach to screening, admissions, and other housing decisions.
- First-Ever Actions to Address Climate Effects:
- HUD is innovating in how it approaches climate investment, creating the first-ever HUD program to simultaneously invest in energy efficiency, renewable energy generation, climate resilience and low embodied carbon. Funded through President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP) provides $800 million in grant and loan subsidy funding and $4 billion in loan commitment to HUD-Assisted Multifamily Housing to make homes safer and more sustainable.
- Recognizing the tremendous opportunities for investments across federal agencies HUD launched a web-based Funding Navigator and supporting resources to connect program participants to funding opportunities for climate resilience, energy efficiency, renewable energy integration, healthy housing, workforce development and environmental justice. HUD provided $6.7 billion in disaster assistance through Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) to help communities build back resiliently following disasters in 2021 and 2022. To better serve communities who face direct impacts of weather-related disasters, HUD established a new Office of Disaster Management (ODM) in the Office of the Deputy Secretary and a new Office of Disaster Recovery (ODR) in the Office of Community Planning and Development.
- Leading Work to Drive Social and Environmental Impact through Capital Markets:
- Ginnie Mae is leading the way in driving social and sustainable impact investment through the capital markets for the benefit of lower income borrowers and historically underserved communities.
- Signed interagency agreements with government insuring agency partners to improve data disclosures and outcomes for borrowers.
- Ginnie Mae launched a first of its kind “social label” and social impact and sustainability framework for social impact MBS investors.
- In under two years, Ginnie Mae has aggressively grown a green bond program supported by environmentally sustainable multifamily projects. Today, over 50 percent of its portfolio is green or affordable, or both.