Senator Boxer: Investing in Affordable Housing Creates Jobs   

Wednesday, January 27, 2010  

Dear Friend:

I want to let you know about an important initiative to create jobs in the construction industry while providing communities with greater access to affordable housing.

I recently joined a group of 25 Senators in writing to the Senate’s Democratic leadership asking them to include funding for the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) in the Senate version of a jobs and state fiscal relief package.  As we noted, this investment is especially important now as we seek to increase employment opportunities for jobless workers and as the housing needs of American families become ever more urgent with the rise in foreclosures.

The Jobs for Main Street Act, which passed the House of Representatives last month, would invest $1 billion in the NHTF, of which California would receive $193 million.  The House bill also contains $65 million for project-based vouchers to support units built by the NHTF.  We asked the Senate leadership to include this same funding in the Senate jobs package.

In 2008, I co-sponsored legislation creating the NHTF to establish a permanent source of funding for affordable housing that would not be subject to the annual appropriations process.  However, the NHTF has yet to be funded, even though the there are only 37 affordable rental homes for every 100 extremely low-income renter households nationwide.

By investing in the NHTF now, Congress would enable the Trust Fund to build, preserve, or rehabilitate about 10,000 rental homes, thereby creating 15,000 new jobs in the building trades and another 4,000 ongoing jobs to operate this housing.  

As the Senate develops its new jobs bill, you can count on me to keep working to create jobs in the construction industry and to address the growing need for affordable housing.

Sincerely,