Special Report Contents

The Drive to End Chronic Homelessness Reconstructing the "Projects" Affordable Rental Housing: The Sometimes Unwanted Neighbor "Top Down" vs. "Bottom-Up" Community Revitalization Casualties in the Drive for Homeownership The Federal Housing and Community Development Budget Key Organizations

The rough "National AH/CD Budget" is $57 billion. While substantial, it pales in comparison to the $123.2 billion in estimated 2008 federal tax expenditures that predominantly serve non-low- income homeowners. Compared to middle- and upper-income households, lower-income families receive a much smaller share of these homeowner benefits, which include lost tax revenues of $79.9 billion for the mortgage interest deduction on owner-occupied residents, $14.3 billion for the property tax deduction on owner-occupied residents, and $29 billion for the exclusion of capital gains on sales of principal residences, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation's Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures for Fiscal Years 2007-2011.

The national AH/CD budget includes: 

-$40.4 billion Fiscal Year 2008 enacted budget appropriation for HUD (includes $3.6 billion for CDBG);

-$9.7 billion in federal tax incentives for investing in low-income housing or distressed neighborhoods (includes $5.3 billion in LIHTC expenditures); *

-$6.74 billion in 2008 program level spending for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development Agency's Rural Housing Service;

-$130 million for the Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem program of the Department of Veterans Affairs; and

-$94 million under a Treasury Department program for Community Development Financial Institutions.

* These expenditures include the tax credit for low-income housing ($5.3 billion); tax credits and incentives aimed at lower-income communities through the Empowerment Zones, Renewal Communities, and the New Markets Tax Credit programs ($2.3 billion together); the exclusion of interest on state and local government qualified private activity bonds for owner-occupied housing ($1.4 billion), and the exclusion of interest on state and local government qualified private activity bonds for rental housing ($0.7 billion).

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