- The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has ordered Goldman Sachs to pay National Australia Bank $100 million over $80 million in collateralized debt obligations.
- US Bank escapes liability under the False Claims Acts for filing FHA insurance claims without complying with HUD requirements.
- California federal judge grants summary judgment in suit against Bank of America for allegedly targeting minority neighborhoods with predatory loans in discriminatory lending suit.
Tag Archives: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Friday’s Government Reports
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report Credit Invisibles estimates that 19.4 million Americans will have difficulty accessing credit for lack of credit history. This trend is most pronounced in the young and in poor black and latin populations.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development report Examination of Alternative FHA Mortgage Insurance Programs for Financing Single Family Rental and Small Multifamily Rental Properties considers, among other things, whether FHA should play a greater role in financing for small multifamily properties. Possible benefits include: a greater supply of affordable rental housing, a more diverse stock of rental housing and neighborhood stabilization benefits if better financing options spur investment in distressed properties.
Friday’s Government Reports Roundup
- CFPB releases its 2014 Fair Lending Report, discussing its fair lending acts over the past year. It shows that the CFPB required institutions to provide over $224 million in remediation in 2014.
- A S. Census Bureau paper examines the effects of foreclosures on families during the financial crisis and in the years following.
- The Center for Housing Policy released a report “Impacts of Affordable Housing on Health: A Research Summary,” which discusses how Affordable Housing is correlated to better health than unaffordable, unstable and poor quality housing.
- The National Housing Conference released report: “Broadband Connectivity in Affordable Housing,” which highlights the need for internet access in affordable housing.
- HUD released the “2015 Worst Case Housing Needs” report.
Friday’s Government Reports Roundup
- The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its results to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Guarantee Fee Review. Following the release, the FHFA announced that the fees would remain the same with modest adjustments.
- HUD released the 2009-2011 National Rental Dynamics Reports, which tracks changes in rental housing affordability.
Friday’s Government Reports Roundup
- The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a report on mortgage performance.
- CFPB releases its Consumer Response Annual Report analyzing the complaints it received in 2014 and its fourth annual Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
- FHFA releases its 2014 fourth quarter Foreclosure Prevention Report stating the foreclosure prevention actions by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
- HUD releases report in which it evaluates the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
Friday’s Government Report Roundup
- CRS Report, ‘Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI): Programs and Policy Issues’, by Sean Lowry. (Need Bloomberg BNA Subscription)
- Consumers’ mortgage shopping experience, by CFPB.
- HUD Subsidized More Than 106,000 Noncompliant Households. (Discussing HUD’s large-scale failure in oversight of requirement that persons living in subsidized housing perform eight hours of community service per month, or enroll in job training).
Dog Bites Man: Housing Vouchers Are Good
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorites has issued a short report, Research Shows Housing Vouchers Reduce Hardship and Provide Platform for Long-Term Gains Among Children. Many housing policy researchers favor housing voucher programs over project-specific housing subsidies, although policymakers consistently favor the latter. So while this report isn’t really news, it is important to that its main points are frequently reiterated:
The Housing Choice Voucher program, the nation’s largest rental assistance program, helps more than 2 million low-income families rent modest units of their choice in the private market. Vouchers sharply reduce homelessness and other hardships, lift more than a million people out of poverty, and give families an opportunity to move to safer, less poor neighborhoods. These effects, in turn, are closely linked to educational, developmental, and health benefits that can improve children’s long-term life chances and reduce costs in other public programs. This analysis reviews research findings on vouchers’ impact on families with children, people with disabilities, and other poor and vulnerable households. (1, footnote omitted)
The report is not as precise as I would have liked. It describes a study of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families-eligible families as a study of “low-income” families. (compare text on page one with text in footnote ii). People eligible for Housing Choice Vouchers and TANF are “very low-income,” which is a meaningfully distinct subset of low-income families.Very low-income families have incomes that do not exceed 50% of the area median income whereas low-income families generally have incomes that do not exceed 80% of the area median income. I would guess that the findings about the very low-income subset would not directly apply to the bigger set of low-income families.
With that caveat in mind, here are the report’s main findings about Housing Choice Vouchers. They
- Reduced the share of families that lived in shelters or on the streets by three-fourths, from 13 percent to 3 percent.
- Reduced the share of families that lacked a home of their own — a broader group that includes those doubled up with friends and family in addition to those in shelters or on the streets — by close to 80 percent, from 45 percent to 9 percent.
- Reduced the share of families living in crowded conditions by more than half, from 46 percent to 22 percent.
- Reduced the number of times that families moved over a five-year period, on average, by close to 40 percent. (1)
These are big effects. Policymakers, pay attention!