ACT NOW: Housing Funds Are at Extreme Risk of Being Cut from the Build Back Better Act

President Biden, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Leader Schumer are currently negotiating significant cuts to the Build Back Better Act, and housing funding is at extreme risk of being cut. It is possible that the current $327 to $332 billion in housing funding may be cut down to $100 billion or less, threatening this once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform our nation’s fair housing infrastructure and support housing opportunity.  

We need YOU to help us protect the following critical housing priorities:

• Equity Requirements Applying to All Programs:
  • All housing and community development titles, including those not implemented by HUD, must be subject to the Fair Housing Act’s AFFH mandate to ensure that investments do not advance displacement and unmitigated gentrification.
  • HUD must be responsible for creating a process for monitoring program implementation compliance with the AFFH requirement of the Fair Housing Act.
  • Strong diversity, equity, and inclusion must be included in the implementation of new investments that support local communities through local hiring requirements in rehab and new housing development.
• $100 billion for the Downpayment Toward Equity Act’s first-generation down payment assistance (DPA) program to level the playing field and provide people of color the opportunity to purchase homes through quality, affordable, mortgage credit. Every $30 billion dedicated to DPA funding for first-generation homebuyers adds more than 500,000 new Black and Latino homeowners, increasing the homeownership rates for both groups respectively by 1 percentage point.
• $1 billion for the Fair Housing Initiatives Program to ensure the nation’s private fair housing enforcement infrastructure can be sustained and continue to challenge housing and lending discrimination in an increasingly complex housing market.
• $250 million for the Fair Housing Assistance Program to ensure state and local government agencies can better enforce the Fair Housing Act.