National Housing Crisis Task Force Issues Broad Range of Policy Recommendations for New Administration

In late 2024, The National Housing Crisis Task Force issued a broad swath of policy recommendations for the new administration to address the nation’s housing crisis, including calling for the federal government to “fundamentally restructure” its organization to address the problem and provide $100 billion to rehabilitate existing subsidized affordable housing stock.

The agenda, released November 4 before the election, also calls for expanding and reforming the nine percent Low Income Housing Tax Credit in ways, such as increasing the “basis boost” for difficult development areas and exempting affordable housing from the state private activity bond cap.

The task force, launched in July, is made up of 28 public, civic and corporate leaders from across the nation. It released its first policy recommendations in early November, detailing its recommendations in an 81-page document titled, From Crisis to Transformation: A Federal Housing Policy Agenda.

Among its 40 policy recommendations for the new administration’s first 100 days is a proposal to restructure the housing departments of the federal government to be headed by a Housing Crisis Council with a leader that reports directly to the president and the White House chief of staff.

“This Federal Housing Policy Agenda lays out a blueprint for how the next presidential administration and Congress can leverage federal resources and policies to begin to address this crisis,” the task force co-chairs wrote in a letter introducing the agenda.

The bipartisan task force is co-chaired by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Susan Thomas, president of Fifth Third Community Development Corp. The task force is a project of Drexel University’s Nowak Metro Finance Lab and Accelerator for America.

The task force, which plans to convene roundtables with local and national leaders throughout the nation, seeks to issue a playbook by July, which highlights state and local solutions to the housing crisis.

Leading and Focusing the Nation on the Housing Crisis
In addition to creating a Housing Crisis Council in the White House, the policy agenda recommends creating a national housing production goal and incentivizing states to meet regional housing needs. It also recommends taking action to stabilize and modernize the property insurance market by forming a blue-ribbon commission to study the issue.

“The Blue-Ribbon Commission should consider various models to ensure that there is sufficient, affordable insurance and reinsurance capital in the market so that affordable multifamily operators can continue to operate,” the agenda reads.

According to the task force report, models to stabilize the nation’s insurance market could include: developing a federal reinsurance capital source for affordable housing developments; creating an expanded federal Home Insurance program similar to the National Flood Insurance program as an insurer of last resort; and implementing a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)-like model where affordable housing providers spread risk across the entire affordable housing ecosystem and provide sufficient last-resort coverage to drive down premium costs.”

The agenda also calls for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to streamline and update HUD programs to facilitate the financing of affordable housing for cities and private developers. These efforts should seek to spur the development of accessory dwelling units, manufactured homes and multifamily buildings. The federal government, the agenda states, should innovate around housing with an “industrial policy lens” and approach housing production as an industry.

Utilizing Federal Land for Affordable Housing and Creating Greater Flexibility in Historic Preservation
The task force also recommends that the new administration conduct an audit of federal land holdings to use for housing development.

“The use of federal land and buildings to create housing units affordable to households at or below 80 percent area median income should be conveyed at no cost,” the agenda reads. “The use of federal land and buildings to create housing units affordable to households at 100 percent AMI should be conveyed at a reduced market price, while federal land and buildings conveyed for market-rate housing should be expedited but not discounted.”

The housing agenda also calls for the new administration to urge the National Park Service (NPS) to allow greater flexibility in its Federal Historic Tax Preservation tax incentive program to encourage private sector investment in the preservation and re-use of historic buildings. The report calls the NPS’s current interpretation and enforcement of the preservation standard as too strict.

Expanding and Reforming the Low Income Housing Tax Credit
The task also recommends expanding the nine percent LIHTC by increasing the “basis boost” for difficult development areas, streamlining income verification, strengthening cost oversight provisions and expanding exempting affordable housing from the state private activity bond cap.

“The amount of nine percent LIHTC available nationally should be meaningfully expanded – restoring the 12.5 percent increase from 2018, paired with a further increase of allocations by 50 percent…,” the agenda reads. The agenda further states that expanding LIHTC “would result in over 200,000 more affordable homes over ten years.”

The agenda also calls for: raising the Faircloth cap for cities that have no Faircloth units left, exempting infill projects from the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase construction loan mezzanine debt, and expanding opportunity zones for affordable and workforce housing.

Other recommendations include:

• Committing to measuring real-time data on the housing market;
• Piloting a lease-to-own mortgage program to broaden homeownership;
• Reviewing changes to current mortgage underwriting criteria to stimulate homebuilding;
• Creating a Housing Innovation Unit within HUD;
• Developing an Evidence-Based Model Multifamily Building Code for adoption by states and localities to reduce construction costs;
• Launching a housing fellowship program to encourage the next generation of housing leaders; and
• Creating a federal tax credit for moderate-income, rent-burdened tax filers.