February 2021: State & Federal Budget Updates

This was originally published in the March 2, 2021 OCDCA newsletter.

State News

State Budget Updates

Recently the DeWine administration introduced the biennium budget. Of note is a proposal that would invest $200 million to provide grants to pay for community infrastructure projects. This would happen in the form of $2 million grants for only smaller communities (those with populations between 1,000 and 75,000 and with an annual median household income of less than $50,000 per year) for projects that include water and sewer projects, downtown revitalization, demolition of blighted properties and redevelopment purposes. This proposal and the entire budget will reworked by the House and Senate.

OCDCA is also advocating for additional community development resources at the state level through the Main Street Job Recovery Program and the Ohio Financial Empowerment Fund.

Please sign your organization onto the Main Street Job Recovery Program support letter by March 9th!

Sign the letter

Brownfield Funding Legislation Introduced in the State Legislature

From Greater Ohio Policy Center: House Bill 143 (HB143) and Senate Bill 84 (SB84) were introduced in the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate by Representative Brett Hudson Hillyer (R – Uhrichsville) and Senators Sandra Williams (D – Cleveland) and Michael Rulli (R – Salem). These bills provide dedicated funding to the Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund (CORF). CORF was a highly successful program which, between 2002 and 2013, provided state funding to revitalize brownfields, and in turn, provided the state with a four-to-one economic return. CORF is recognized as a community-responsive tool for brownfield redevelopment efforts. Therefore, public and private stakeholders agree that providing CORF with a dedicated funding source is the most logical solution to addressing the brownfield remediation need in Ohio’s communities.

SB17 will cost $20M in red tape while helping no one

An Ohio Senate bill that seeks to catch fraud among people applying for and receiving social services will result in increased work for county case workers, as well as fewer low-income people obtaining food aid, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits. Read more about it in the Highland County Press or Cleveland.com. Follow #OhioansagainstSB17 to stay up to date.

Final PY21 Housing Development Gap Financing Guidelines Now Available

The Final Program Year 2021 HDGF Guidelines are now available on OHFA's HDAP webpage. The HDGF program will award Ohio Housing Trust Funds and National Housing Trust Funds to affordable housing developments consisting of four to 24 units. OHFA will begin accepting Intents to Apply from applicants on May 3, 2021. Questions regarding HDGF can be sent to kbanyai@ohiohome.org.

Federal News

House Passes Coronavirus Relief Package with Over $40 Billion for Housing and Homelessness

The House of Representatives passed by a vote of 219 to 212 the “American Rescue Plan Act,” a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package containing $40 billion in essential housing and homelessness assistance, including $26 billion for rental assistance and $5 billion to assist people who are homeless. Although the Senate parliamentarian ruled on the evening of February 25 that the provision to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour violates the parameters of the reconciliation process, congressional leaders in the House kept the provision in the bill. As the bill moves to the Senate, Democratic leaders will determine whether to remove the provision from the Senate bill or keep the provision and likely have it subjected to a “Point of Order” during debate and removed. Senate leaders are expected to skip committee votes and bring the bill to the Senate floor for up to 20 hours of debate, followed by a “vote-a-rama,” during which senators will have the opportunity to offer an unlimited number of amendments to the bill before a floor vote. The House and Senate are aiming to have the bill finalized and sent to President Biden before March 14, when the pandemic-extended unemployment benefits are slated to expire. Read more from NLIHC.

Federal Sign On Letters

Maximize HUD Funding

Urge Congressional appropriators to allocate the largest possible slice of the pie to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) subcommittee. It's critical that the THUD subcommittee get the resources they need to fund housing and community development programs at HUD and USDA. Sign the letter by March 5th!

CRA Can be Race-Conscious

NCRC is re-opening a comment letter we submitted last week for further sign-on that urged the Federal Reserve Board to adopt a more race-conscious Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Sign the letter by March 5th!

OCDCA Submits CRA Comment Letter

Thank you to the many members who submitted comments on the Federal Reserve's Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) on CRA. OCDCA submitted our comments earlier in February. Read them here.

Restoring Communities Left Behind Act

The Restoring Communities Left Behind Act (H.R. 816) was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). The Restoring Communities Left Behind Act would authorize the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to establish a $5 billion program, that would operate from fiscal years 2021 to 2031, to award competitive grants to eligible local partnerships for neighborhood revitalization activities.

HUD Announces Fair Housing Protections for LGBTQ Americans

HUD announced this month that it will now accept and review Fair Housing Act complaints alleging discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. We, along with Enterprise Community Partners, applaud HUD for taking this important step towards addressing housing discrimination against LGBTQ individuals.

May 2020: OCC Issues Final CRA Rule in the Face of Massive Flaws and Opposition

This was originally published on May 29, 2020 in the OCDCA Newsletter.

Federal News

OCC Issues Final CRA Rule in the Face of Massive Flaws and Opposition
On May 20 the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced a final CRA rule with a list of CRA qualifying activities. Comptroller Joseph Otting, the Trump appointee who slammed through the rule, has resigned and will be leaving his post today in the middle of a national economic crisis. Surprisingly the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) decided not to join the OCC. The Federal Reserve was already in disagreement.

Reaction from advocates has been clearly negative. Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) said "This is an awkward, disjointed and rushed move by a single agency that couldn't get agreement from the two other agencies that regulate banks within the same administration. The OCC should have been able to agree and work with the other two agencies that oversee enforcement of the same law. It couldn't. It failed. That's an administrative fiasco.... He (Otting) just made a regulatory mess and he isn't sticking around to fix it."

Comptroller Otting also took the highly unusual step of privately lobbying the country's largest financial institutions to support his crusade. Think about that - the regulator lobbying the regulated.

"I'm not at all surprised by the reckless speed at which the OCC finalized the rule," said NACEDA Executive Director Frank Woodruff. "Comptroller Otting has choreographed the illusion of rulemaking since day one, putting forward his misguided single ratio approach over the objections of communities, advocates, banks, and his fellow regulators. I find it exceedingly hard to believe the OCC has carefully considered over 7,500 comments in 41 days while simultaneously managing our country's financial health during a global pandemic."

"The OCC's approach to CRA reform was always misguided, secretive, and suspect. The fact that the OCC would issue a new rule in the midst of a global pandemic and just a few weeks after the overwhelming majority of the 7,500 comments raised a myriad of serious concerns, directly illustrates that this effort was never about bolstering access to capital in low-income communities. It was always about gutting this most important law while dismissing our beloved communities," said Nate Coffman, Executive Director of the Ohio CDC Association.

This is not over. NCRC and partners have pledged to file litigation. Practically rolling out the new rules will take a couple of years or more also creating potential opportunities for legislative and/or administrative solutions. Although the OCC may have ignored the overwhelming dissent in the public comments, the comments remain valuable to future litigation and legislative/administrative advocacy. OCDCA greatly appreciates the many members that have advocated against this harmful rule.

Advocate for #RentReliefNow

Earlier this month Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Denny Heck (D-WA), introduced "The Emergency Rental Assistance and Rental Market Stabilization Act" to create a $100 billion federal Emergency Rental Assistance program to keep low-income, unemployed tenants safely housed during the pandemic. Over one-million Ohioans applied for unemployment benefits within the last few weeks with 650,000 of those being renters. The Act was included in the recently House passed HEROES ACT (pandemic relief) to be negotiated with the Senate.

Our friends at COHHIO have explained that with landlords and tenants joining forces, momentum for emergency rental assistance is growing.

Sen. Rob Portman, who introduced the Eviction Crisis Act in December, understands the need for rental assistance and could provide crucial support in the Senate. Please take a moment to ask him to support an expanded version of that bill that would provide enough funding for rental assistance ($100 billion) to respond to the new realities facing renters as a result of COVID-19.

Thank you for your advocacy! When these phone calls add up, they really can make a difference.

HUD Distributes $1 Billion Second-Round CDBG-CV Funds

HUD's Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) posted the second round of CARES Act CDBG supplemental funding, CDBG-CV, on May 11. The CARES Act provides up to $5 billion in CDBG supplemental funding. Of that amount, the first allocations of $2 billion were announced on April 1 and were distributed to states and entitlement jurisdictions using the same statutory formula used to distribute the regular annual FY20 CDBG allocations. The remaining portion of the $5 billion is to be distributed directly to a state or unit of local government, at HUD's discretion, according to a formula based on factors to be determined by HUD. These allocations can be made on a rolling basis based on available data.

State News

Brownfields Bill Passed, Awaits Gov. Approval

Ohio lawmakers unanimously passed HB168, with the Senate passing the bill on May 6 and the House of Representatives concurring to changes made by the Senate on May 13. HB168 is a bill that the Greater Ohio Policy Center has championed as a means to encourage brownfield redevelopment through regulatory reform. The bill provides an affirmative defense for legal liability protection to prospective purchasers of a brownfield who take all appropriate steps to assess the property. An amendment accepted near the end of the bills deliberations clarifies that the affirmative defense offered by the bill is retroactive to January 11, 2002, when companion federal legislation look effect.

Having passed both the House and Senate unanimously, the bill now heads to Governor Mike DeWine's desk for approval.

You can read more about HB168 and what BFPD will do to encourage more brownfield development on the GOPC blog.

Planning to Apply for Housing Development Gap Financing?

OHFA is accepting a Notice of Intent to Apply and Exception Requests for the 2020 HDGF program. If you are planning to submit a Notice of Intent to Apply for the HDGF program, please contact Karen Banyai before submitting the materials to OHFA. Karen will work with applicants on where and how the materials should be sent to OHFA in order to ensure all materials are received and reviewed in a prompt manner. The application window will close on July 30, 2020 or after all funds have been reserved.