Summer 2006 Journal

Was it a good session? Was it a bad session? It was the session that we should have seen all the money in the state and local housing trust funds appropriated for affordable housing. That did not happen. In fact less than half of the monies which should and could have been used to fund our existing programs such as SHIP and SAIL will be made available. The rest will remain sitting in the trust funds unable to benefit affordable housing production- a truly inexplicable outcome at a time of unprecedented housing crisis coupled with unprecedented surplus of general revenue and a state and local housing trust fund holding approximately $940 million. The good news is twofold: the monies left unappropriated (approximately $507 million) was not spent for other purposes, so it will be available to be used for affordable housing programs in the 2007 session, and the affordable housing crisis is certainly on every legislator’s radar screen.