The Support Allowing Volume Expansion (SAVE) Federally-Assisted Housing Act provides critical financial leverage to PHAs. It creates an exemption for public and federally-assisted affordable housing to volume caps on private activity bonds (PAB). It was introduced in the last Congress by Representative Katherine Clark (D-MA).Rep. Clark is expected to reintroduce the legislation again in this Congress.
We are asking CLPHA members to reach out to their Members of Congress to ask them to support the SAVE Act when it is re-introduced in Congress soon. CLPHA has prepared a one pagerexplaining the importance of the SAVE Act and how it would benefit PHAs.
Urge your members of Congress to cosponsor H.R. 1904: The Broadband Justice Act of 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the growing digital divide and the deepening disparities among access to essential technology. These inequities especially impact lower income households and those living in federally assisted housing.
By updating the definitions used by HUD, the Department of Treasury, and USDA for utility allowance, The Broadband Justice Act of 2021 would bring affordable broadband to 8 million households residing in federally assisted housing throughout the nation. Bolstered through the creation of a new grant program to develop the required infrastructure and additional operating funds to mitigate increased costs, access to broadband as an allowed utility would be federally subsidized, in a similar way that gas, electricity, and water currently are. Congressman Bowman (D-NY), the bill sponsor, is organizing support for the letter and has set a Friday, March 26, 5:00 pm ET deadline for House members to sign on.
Congressional Democrats are moving the next COVID-19 bill swiftly through Congress. CLPHA and other national public housing industry groups are asking our members to sign on to a joint industry letter to be sent to congressional leadership asking for additional emergency funding and longer-term preservation resources for public housing operating funding, housing vouchers, and infrastructure funding.
Sign-on for the letter is on a short deadline with
sign-on due by 12:00 p.m. ET Friday, February 12.
Therefore, CLPHA is calling on members to re-double efforts to ensure our funding requests are considered by Congress and included in the next economic stimulus package.
A copy of the letter and a link to sign-on can be found at this Google Forms link:
Communicate with your Members of Congress and ask them to support including emergency funding and longer-term preservation resources for public housing, housing vouchers and infrastructure in the next COVID relief legislation.
Ask your Members of Congress to urge the House and Senate Leadership to include emergency funding and longer-term preservation resources for public housing, housing vouchers and infrastructure in the next COVID relief legislation.
For questions or additional information, contact Gerard Holder, CLPHA Legislative Director at gholder@clpha.org or Emily Warren, CLPHA Director of Research and Policy at ewarren@clpha.org.
You can also click here to watch a webinar site tour that shows CLPHA members how to create website accounts for themselves and provides an overview of the site's functionality.
