On Nov. 5, the House voted to pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, often referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF), and the bill was signed by President Biden’s on Monday, 15. The package authorizes $550 billion in new transportation, energy, environment and climate investments.  

The House also voted to pass a rule to begin the process of advancing consideration for the Build Back Better Act (BBB), which includes $150 billion in proposed housing investments including rental assistance, HOME and CDBG, funding for the national housing trust fund and a new fair housing incentive program, among other investments.  

Addressing the Bond Cap

Importantly, the framework now includes one of California’s top housing priorities: addressing the bond cap issue for Low-Income Housing Tax Credits by lowering the 50 percent test to 25 percent. 

This would unlock financing for tens of thousands of affordable homes across the state. The LIHTC provisions were originally stripped from the bill in negotiations but were added back on Nov. 3.

We would like to extend a sincere thank you to our Bay Area leaders in Washington DC, including Speaker Pelosi, Assemblymember Lee, and Senators Feinstein and Padilla for championing these affordable housing priorities. We would also like to thank the numerous Bay Area Mayors and other elected officials who raised their voices in support, including the Mayors who signed on to the Enterprise-led national Mayoral support letter. 

We’ve heard that the many emails, articles, calls, and texts on this topic from Bay Area local elected officials and housing leaders like you were key to securing the LIHTC provisions in the updated draft of the bill – thank you for being our partner in this work! 

For more information on the amended BBB legislation’s proposed housing investments, check out our blog on the House Financial Services Committee investments as well as our blog on the affordable housing and community development tax provisions. 

What’s Next for Build Back Better?

While the procedural vote on the BBB is an important step forward, it is worth noting that the House did not pre-negotiate the current BBB legislative text with the Senate, which means if and when the package passes the House, there remain a number of legislative steps to final passage.  

Enterprise continues to urge our partners to reach out to their members of Congress and ask them to include the highest level of funding possible for affordable housing and community development investments, including the investments in the Housing Credit, in the final Build Back Better Act. 

We are also continuing to push the Senate for expanding the eligibility of the new Unlocking Possibilities Program to include regional entities like Bay Area Housing Finance Authority. Now is the time to continue to keep up our advocacy! 

For more information on how to support these efforts, please contact Justine Marcus at jmarcus@enterprisecommunity.org.