Urban Housing: A Strategic Role for the States

Amid the cacophony of the Clinton Administration's first year, quiet steps were taken to transform federal housing policy. Two popular housing programs, tax-exempt housing revenue bonds and low-income housing tax credits, were extended permanently in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. Tax-exempt housing revenue bonds have been the mainstay of a remarkable growth in state housing-finance programs in the past twenty years. The low-income housing tax credit, the only active federal housing production subsidy program, is administered by many of the same state housing agencies that issue tax-exempt housing revenue bonds.

The congressional decision to give permanent status to these two programs is evidence of a growing confidence in the ability of states to be the primary managers of federal housing policy.