After a decade long campaign, the National Housing Trust Fund was finally created in 2008 with the passage of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act. Established and administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the NHTF is a block grant – funds are to be distributed by the federal government to states by formula, and states have flexibility to use the funds to meet local needs in the way they determine is most effective and efficient as long as they meet and comply with the basic requirements established under the Act to increase and preserve the supply of rental housing and to increase homeownership for extremely low and very low income families.
This section covers those requirements – the framework and programmatic details that are laid out in the Act, including how funds will be distributed, the kinds of activities funds can be used to support, and the steps states need to take to draw down funds. It also reviews the current state of funding for the NHTF.
To download the new NHTF FAQ from the National Low Income Housing Coalition,click here. To go to HUD’s NHTF website, click here.