On February 16, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) introduced S. 2319, the Hurricane Recovery Act of 2006. The bill includes, among other things, language that would establish an Affordable Housing Fund with a percentage of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s profits.
The bill includes ten titles, responding to needs created by the 2005 hurricanes in the areas of health, housing and community rebuilding, financial services, small business, higher education, tax breaks and incentives, as well as recommendations for improving transparency and accountability during the recovery and relief and future evacuations of individuals with special needs.
Within the Housing and Community Rebuilding Title is a section that would, similar to H.R. 1461, the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, establish an Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) from a percentage of the profits of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE). The funds would be used for the production, preservation and rehabilitation of rental housing and homeownership, for extremely-low and very-low income families.
Unlike the AHF in H.R. 1461 that passed the House floor on October 26 (see Memo, 10/28), S. 2319 does not include any restrictive anti-voting provisions. Other compromises made to appease the Republican Study Committee included in the final House bill, such as a five year sunsetting of the AHF, a requirement that 25% of the fund be used to satisfy part of the existing Treasury obligation to pay interest on REFCorp bonds, and a prohibition against allowing funds awarded to a nonprofit entity to be redistributed to other nonprofit entities, are not included in Senator Obama’s bill.