After Pressure from Sen. Reed, Administration Relents and Finally Apportions Affordable Housing Trust Fund Grants to States

With a new $3.3 million boost, Reed’s 2008 law has now resulted in $33.6 million in federal HTF funding to enhance supply of affordable rental housing in RI PROVIDENCE, RI – As part of his long-standing effort to help Rhode Island build more desirable, affordable rental housing units, U.S. Senator Jack Reed today announced another $3,311,933 is heading to the Ocean State courtesy of the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF), a program Reed created back in 2008. Reed, a senior member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, who also serves as a senior member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing, Urban Development and Related Agencies (THUD), led the successful effort to create the HTF, which was authorized by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (P.L. 110–289), which was signed into law July 30, 2008. Reed celebrated the apportionment of the Housing Trust Fund grants after leading a campaign to successfully pressure the Trump Administration to release the funds. Last month, Reed led 22 of his colleagues in sending a letter to White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought demanding that the Trump Administration release housing construction funds without further delay. Reed also urged Vought to apportion the funds to HUD during a Senate Banking Committee hearing . “It took them too long, but it’s good news that the Trump Administration finally agreed to release this long overdue federal funding to help states address the severe shortage of affordable rental housing. People need to be able to afford to live in the communities where they work. This is a smart investment in helping working families and strengthening communities, and it also helps generate jobs and economic development,” said Senator Reed. “Rhode Island can use this money to build, preserve, and repair high-quality rental housing. I created the Housing Trust Fund to provide communities with resources to help address the affordable housing shortage. Workers should be able to live closer to their jobs and spend more time with their families. Ensuring a healthy housing market is critical to our economic future.” Reed wrote the law to ensure the Housing Trust Fund would operate at no cost to taxpayers. Instead, the program is capitalized through a portion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s profits. Administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the HTF is an affordable housing production and preservation program that complements existing federal, state, and local efforts to increase and preserve the supply of decent, safe, and sanitary affordable housing for extremely low-income and very low-income households, including homeless families. To ensure that Rhode Island and other small states received a fair amount of funding, Senator Reed included a small state minimum of $3 million in the authorizing legislation. Since 2016, HTF has allocated $3.5 billion in federal affordable housing assistance to states nationwide, and Rhode Island has now received a total of $33.6 million in federal HTF funding. In the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Out of Reach 2026 report, Rhode Island was ranked as the 13th most expensive state for renters , requiring a minimum wage worker to work 68 hours per week to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. Overall, HUD is distributing a total of $255.5 million nationwide through the national Housing Trust Fund this year to build, preserve, and rehabilitate affordable rental housing. In Rhode Island, Housing Trust Fund dollars are administered and distributed by RIHousing. Under the law, state designated awardees may distribute these funds for eligible activities such as real property acquisition, development costs, demolition, financing costs, relocation assistance, and up to 30 percent of each grant for rental housing operating cost assistance.