Title
Condemning the Trump Administration and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for ending the Restore-Rebuild Program, one of the strongest tools available to Public Housing Authorities nationwide for expanding and preserving deeply affordable housing.
Body
WHEREAS, Rising rents, increased housing instability, and a nationwide shortage of deeply affordable housing continue to deepen Philadelphia's affordable housing crisis. These challenges disproportionately impact low-income households, seniors, people with disabilities, and working-class communities; and
WHEREAS, Public Housing Authorities across the country have struggled for decades with chronic federal underfunding, aging housing stock, and growing demand for affordable housing opportunities; and
WHEREAS, The Restore-Rebuild Program, formerly known as Faircloth to RAD, is a federal program administered by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD") that allowed Public Housing Authorities to create new deeply affordable housing units while accessing long-term Section 8 rental assistance and leveraging private financing tools for rehabilitation, redevelopment, preservation, and new construction, thereby allowing affordable housing projects to secure permanent debt financing and other critical capital investments; and
WHEREAS, The combination of long-term rental assistance and access to private financing made Restore-Rebuild one of the few scalable affordable housing development tools available to Public Housing Authorities, enabling agencies to leverage federal assistance to attract substantial private capital for the construction, acquisition, and preservation of deeply affordable housing; and
WHEREAS, The loss of the Restore-Rebuild Program comes at a time when affordable housing providers face rapidly rising construction costs, increasing insurance premiums, and mounting operational expenses, making access to stable operating subsidies and affor...
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