TRA could be the most important new initiative regarding affordable housing in more than a decade. According to CBPP study TRA would help preserve large numbers of public housing units -- by HUD’s estimate as many as 280,000 in the first year, which would be about one-fourth of the public housing stock. The majority of these apartments house elderly people or people with disabilities, while others provide crucial stability for working poor families with children.
TRA would require that public housing remain publicly owned, but would allow housing agencies to convert developments to a new form of long-term rental subsidy that would combine features from two existing programs (project-based Section 8 and the project-based component of the housing voucher program). This would help preserve the units for the long-term in two ways:
- TRA would provide $290 million to boost subsidies for underfunded public housing developments to a level that is adequate to sustain them in good condition.
- The rules governing the new subsidies would allow housing agencies to more easily borrow private funds to perform needed renovations. HUD estimates that TRA would enable agencies to obtain $7.5 billion in private financing.
Many of these units will eventually be lost as affordable housing if resources are not provided to preserve them. And in the current budgetary environment it is unlikely that Congress will prove sufficient funding to address the large backlog of unmet renovation needs in public housing except through an approach that (like TRA) combines modestly higher annual subsidies with greater ability to leverage private funds.
In addition, TRA would help preserve some privately owned subsidized housing, and make other improvements to streamline program administration and give families with housing assistance greater choice about where they live.
Many details of TRA remain to be filled in, and in some cases (such as the specifics of long-term affordability requirements and resident rights) these will have major implications for the initiative’s effectiveness in preserving affordable housing. HUD expects to submit a detailed legislative proposal by the spring of 2010.
The report is available here.
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