The Utilization Of The Low Income Housing Tax Credit

With Massachusetts State spending on affordable housing and open space at a historic low, when considered as a percentage of the total budget, the production of dwelling units and the conservation of land have become the responsibility of local government, but cities and towns do not build housing, except in rare circumstances. As well they do not routinely buy expensive tracts of open land,

Cowan D & Marsh. 2001. A Two Steps Forward: Housing Policy into the New Millennium. Policy Press

These practices help maintain the status quo, helping low-income families remain poor. Moreover, it requires these low-income families to depend on government assistance, such as low-income housing and welfare. The reliance on assistance programs groups the poorest people in the same housing projects and communities, overwhelming schools with low-income students. Not only do these real estate practices concentrate the poorest in an area together, they also drive the often whiter, more affluent families out. The majority of poor feel they have no opportunity to transcend class restrictions, and the property taxes that fund our schools do not alleviate their stress. Further, homogeneous collections of poor means that school populations are rarely as diverse as we believe.

My proposal will benefit only families of the local communities mentioned previously. These communities have been afflicted with a new interest for gentrification of more affluent residents. We need to protect the low income families from displacement of their neighborhoods. Data that must be collected to initiate the proposal is the family’s income, financial issues, and household size. We are also going to gather data regarding housing prices, rentals and the impact of gentrification within the

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit organization dedicate to building homes for low-income individuals. This organization requires that potential homeowners assist in the building of their home or others to reduce the financing cost of homeownership. This paper focuses on the percentage of property tax revenue, two arguments in favor, and two arguments property tax breaks for Habitat of Humanity homeowner, and case resolution.

In “The Complexities and Processes of Racial Housing discrimination” by Vincent J. Roscigno, Diana L. Karafin, and Griff tester, the main concept of racial disparity and inequality among neighborhoods is discussed, and how those inequalities became to be. They first highlight the wide range of potentially exclusionary practices, through qualitative and quantitative data comprised of over 750 verified housing discrimination cases (Roscigno, p. 162). Citing the U.S. Census, it is found that Blacks, compared to Hispanics and Asians, continue to experience high levels of residential segregation. This is done through discriminatory practices, whether they be by exclusionary or non-exclusionary methods. Even after the passing of the Fair Housing Act in 1988, discrimination against Blacks and Hispanics decreased somewhat, though African Americans still appeared to take part in racial steering, and Hispanics continued to have limitations in regards to opportunities and access to rental units (Roscigno, p. 163).

The Public Policy Institute states that Section 8 project-based rental assistance contracts involving HUD and for-profit owners contracting private multifamily housing, which is made available by HUD to low-income households who qualify for housing assistance. The subsidy is such that pays the difference "between 30 percent of the household's income and the contract rent; the subsidy is paid by HUD to the landlord." (AARP Public Policy Institute, 2002) In addition, HUD has Dispersal programs for renters of Section 8 housing due to the desire of the public to avoid to concentration of poverty-level residents in urban areas. This is because there is a general consensus that Section 8 subsidized housing tends to drive down the market prices of property in the same area. There are various challenges that are faced by the Section 8 subsidized housing program as it assists low-income households obtain appropriate housing through the provision of rental assistance.

What the program does is it gives financing to the advancement expenses of low-wage housing by permitting a speculator to assume a government assess praise equivalent to a certain rate of the cost acquired for improvement of the low-pay units in a rental housing venture. The low income individuals are more likely to be living in rentals than being a homeowner, this would have diminished the new supply of housing open up to them. The LIHTC gives speculators a dollar-for-dollar lessening in their government impose obligation in return for giving financing to create moderate rental living. Speculators' value commitment sponsors low-wage housing improvement, hence permitting a few units to lease at beneath market rates. The IRS requires that state designation arranges organize ventures that serve the most reduced pay inhabitants and guarantee

Inclusionary zoning is a tool to help accomplish affordable housing. The main goal of it is to build a certain percentages of house but to where the houses can be afforded by middle/low income earners. Incentives are provided to act as cost offsets and include density bonuses, tax abatement, and reduced parking charges. Density bonuses motivate developers to have additional units which result in an increased profit margin. On subscription to the inclusionary zoning, benefits accrued eventually lower costs that would have otherwise been charged on the developers. This technique provides a sustainable method of dealing with housing shortage (Dietderich 13). The municipality, however, cannot force developers to set a particular minimum price and therefore the government can only provide incentives to developers to voluntarily provide the units for low-income earners.

The next best alternative to a tax credit, would be the government building the low-incoming housing facilities themselves, since each party in the current process (the developers, the syndicators, and banks) takes a fee for their work (Sullivan & Anderson, 2017), a lot of the money from the program ends up not helping those that need the low-income

The New York State Housing Finance Agency (HFA) was formed in 1960, to assist low- and moderate-income family unit charter expansion (“New York State Housing Finance Agency”, 2012). In this logic its solemn assignment consists of preserving and conserving “high quality” low-priced rental housing for the population athwart the State of New York. Additionally, HFA provides financing to not-for-profit, and for-profit to construct economical letting houses, including NYCHA, and Mitchell Lama developments (“New York State Housing Finance Agency”, 2012). Since its creation, the HFA has commenced a low and moderate-income public housing with 328 developments throughout New York State (“NYS Housing Finance Agency”, 2012). These new constructed houses have improved numerous residents throughout the state as a whole. Over recent years the HFA developments have been experiencing a lessening in New York State government funding, propelling the organization to rehash distinctive strategies addressing the multifamily financing and the low rent opportunities program.

Public housing has the dubious legacy of being one of the biggest, most enduring and farthest-reaching failures in the history of American public policy. High-rise public housing projects like the Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini-Green have become synonymous with poverty, violence, out-of-wedlock childbirth, welfare dependency, and a myriad of other social ills in the minds of most Americans. Although most have now been demolished, these towering high-rises became looming monuments to this epic policy failure—gargantuan symbols of the demoralizing and debilitating conditions that were forced upon society’s poorest and most vulnerable members.

Chinatown, Olvera Street, and Compton all contributed to culturally diversity and the expansion of Los Angeles. Although Los Angeles has become rich in cultures, its evolution did not go without racial tensions and segregation. With the arrival of blacks from the south, white-Los Angeles did always recognize the minority community. Angelenos did not always embrace diversity with pride, but perhaps the sad part is not the fact that racial segregation took place, but the fact that it was not created by just the individual, but also by the organization. Federal programs like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Homeowner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) divided up Los Angeles into a complex socio-economic racial-class system. The influences of the local level influenced the federal level and revolutionized the finance industry. (Avila, lecture 2/5/02) These federal organizations blatantly labeled minorities as derogatory, uneducated, second-class citizens that brought down property value in “white” neighborhoods. Latinos and Black were often labeled as a “minority problem” and even as a “disease” on official HOLC documents. The HOLC implemented strict government guidelines and kept maps of white neighborhoods confidential. It also devised a formal and uniform style of appraising homes by breaking neighborhoods into race classifications by letter. As Waldie states, “The Montana Land Company made it clear that lots were

Over the last three decades, the number of affordable housing units constructed under the Low Income Housing Tax Credit has declined due to poor oversight of the program, unregulated LIHTC development financial markets, and local government’s power to block the construction of LHITC developments in higher opportunity areas.

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of variables used in this study. Based on the ACS 2009-2013, the median housing price and median rent in the Chicago metropolitan area are $266,371 and $912, respectively. The average value of job accessibility and mixed land use are 1.01 and 2.57, respectively. Figure 3 presents a Kernel distribution of job accessibility and mixed land use, which shows that they have different distributions. Average room is 2.64 and average year built is 61. Average housing cost is $1,368. Average age and average household size are 36 and 2.66, respectively. The proportions of black and Hispanic are about 20%. Average residential density is 7.25 (housing/mile2), and the proportion of single housing is about 50%. The average distance to nearest park is 0.38mile, and the average vacancy rate is 10%. As discussed above, our unit of analysis is census tract, and 2,014 census tracts are used in this study.