Our analysis of the State of Texas’ 2015 Competitive Housing Tax Credit awards process seeks to understand how the current scoring process is influenced by state representatives, as well as scoring of other local governmental and public support and the results of tiebreaking procedures.
Read the full report below. We’ve also broken out parts of the analysis separately on the blog, including examinations into how state representatives enable prejudice against the tenants of affordable housing developments, how legislators limit housing options for low income families and how the state scoring system can result in undesirable locations for tax credit developments.
[…] 2015 Texas Housing Tax Credit Report […]
[…] hand, when low income housing is concentrated in areas that are high in poverty and high in crime, as too often happens, residents of both the subsidized housing and the neighborhood suffer. As the headline on CityLab […]
[…] As we covered in our recent in-depth report, tax credit housing in Texas is too often located in exactly those neighborhoods, isolating low income families of color in low opportunity, segregated areas. The Supreme Court ruled the Fair Housing Act is designed to protect against households being “disparately impacted” discrimination in the location of subsidized housing. […]
[…] Allocation Plan,” the document that determines how the state scores applications for the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. Our full comments are here, but today we’re going to recap two points made in our formal […]
[…] Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTCs) present another option for funding for multifamily developments, and CDCB has applied for state LIHTC dollars three times and been awarded for two projects. But the Rio Grande Valley’s poverty presents issues in the tax credit world as well, as part of the state requirements include fair housing guidelines for prioritizing projects in “high opportunity” neighborhoods. The problem is that the Valley’s widespread poverty makes such an area extremely hard to find – Mitchell-Bennett says that CDCB has identified a small part of downtown Brownsville that qualifies, and is looking into purchasing property there. But typically, LIHTC proposals in the area must negotiate special carve-outs around regulations in order to move forward. […]
[…] state’s Low Income Housing Tax Credit dispersal system this year and produced a full report, which you can read here. One of the key findings: The way that the scoring system works is heavily influenced by the […]
[…] Supreme Court has said that the concentration of Low Income Housing Tax Credits in minority areas, which happens far too often in Texas, can disparately impact people of color in a way that violates the Fair Housing Act. But the denial […]
[…] we released our 2015 Texas Housing Tax Credit Report, an in-depth examination of how last year’s state process of awarding tax credits to […]