Welcome to the Ohio Housing Council

OHFA Technical Assistance Grant NOFA

OHFA seeks innovative proposals that will expand Ohio’s capacity to create affordable housing developments by addressing one of the following priorities:

1. Create or enhance organizational capacity to connect affordable housing developers and supportive services including, but not limited to, health care providers, addiction services and legal services.
2. Building capacity for organizations to assist or carry out affordable housing development in areas of high opportunity, underserved or distressed communities.
3. Planning and engagement consultants for each of Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus to provide TA to the city as it develops a Target Area Plan pursuant to the FHAct50 Building Opportunity Fund as further described in the 2019 Technical Amendments to the Qualified Allocation Plan.
   

Applications are due no later than 5:00pm (EDT) on September 12, 2018.

LIHTC Funding Action Required – Contact Congress

Leaders in Washington are working on a budget agreement to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. For us in the affordable housing community, there has been an exciting development.

There is a potential for the key provisions of the Cantwell-Hatch LIHTC modernization bill to be included in the budget bill. This is the product of much hard work by Senator Maria Cantwell and other Republican and Democratic friends of the LIHTC program in the Senate.

House leadership is now considering a Senate proposal that includes a two-year, 50 percent increase in Housing Credit authority and all of the other provisions in the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, S. 548 and H.R. 1661.

Please contact your House members ASAP to get them to speak up for the Senate Housing Credit proposal. Ask Republicans to tell Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Democrats to tell Ways and Means Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-MA) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to support the Senate Housing Credit provisions.

Time is of the essence, as we understand the bill that would incorporate these tax provisions must be agreed to and finalized today to meet tomorrow’s government funding expiration deadline.

Please call and email your Congressmen TODAY.

Ohio Congressional Delegation

Complete Comparison of the House and Senate Tax Proposals

The document below outlines the similarities and differences in the House and Senate Tax proposals. The proposals will be sent to Conference Committee for a compromise.

Comparison of House and Senate Tax Reform Bills – 12.2.17

Immediate Action to Be Taken with Congress regarding the Tax Bills proposed by the House and the Senate

As you may know by now, the proposed Senate tax bill preserves the LIHTC program (without changes or increase as in Cantwell-Hatch), maintains Private Activity Bonds (PABs), New Market Tax Credits, and cuts Historic Tax Credits in half.

The strategy that has emerged for us to take immediate action on are the following:

• Lobby Senators for, in the Senate bill, a fix to the credit’s applicable percentage formula that will compensate for the reduced value of the credit resulting from the reduction in corporate tax rate. I have attached two sets of speaking points, one more detailed than the other. Critical that you reach out to Portman and staff today or over the weekend. This is a complicated subject so you might say that, without the percentage formula fix, the LIHTC program will have 15% less private capital because of tax reform when everybody agrees it is an effective program and wants to preserve it.
• Lobby Senators to urge that, in a conference with the House, the Senate’s preservation of PABs and a fix to the percentage formula be maintained.
• Pat Tiberi has asked that we emphasize the importance of PABs will all congressional Republicans. The contact information for the Ohio Delegation and their tax staff is attached. Remember 40% of production under LIHTC is done with PABs.
• Please also point out the jobs created and business revenues and taxes generated with housing construction and maintenance.  Below is a piece from Novogradac that quantifies the impact of rental housing on the economy over the last ten years plus the top 10 states negatively impacted by the proposed House Bill (Ohio is #3).

Proposal to Address the Reduced Value of the LIHTC

Proposal to Address the Reduced Value of the LIHTC 1

Novogradac Document

Ohio Congressional Delegation