On Mar. 7, 2023, Sharon Wilson Géno, President of the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) testified on behalf of the National Apartment Association (NAA) and NMHC before the Senate Finance Committee.
The hearing, titled “Tax Policy’s Role in Increasing Affordable Housing Supply for Working Families,” largely focused around the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and other tax-related policies to boost housing affordability across the country.
In the written testimony submitted to the committee, NAA and NMHC identified five tax policies for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to consider as ways to increase the supply of affordable housing:
- Expand and enhance the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit;
- Enact the Middle-Income Housing Tax Credit to support workforce housing;
- Enhance Opportunity Zones to better enable its use in rehabilitating and preserving multifamily buildings;
- Support tax policies that help make converting underutilized commercial properties into multifamily housing more financially viable; and
- Promote the rehabilitation of multifamily housing located near transit.
In a statement released following Wilson Géno’s testimony, NAA and NMHC emphasized tax policy as “a critical tool that can be used to address the nation’s housing affordability crisis” and noted that “Congress should consider additional proposals that lower regulatory hurdles and ease construction costs, many of which are included in the Biden Administration’s Housing Supply Action Plan. They should also reform and fully fund the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program and sustain funding for federal housing support for those in financial distress and various housing affordability programs.”