Federally Sponsored Rehabilitation Activity

Mark Duda

W01-8: Each year the federal government spends approximately $6 billion to rehabilitate the housing stock, which leverages a similar amount of spending from the private sector and state and local governments. The bulk of this spending is not captured in remodeling expenditure statistics. Today’s largest programs take the form of block grants, tax credits, and support for improving public housing, though residual insurance programs exist. Over time, federal rehab support favored light then substantial rehab, and has recently shifted back in the direction of smaller projects as administrative control over most federal spending is now devolved to states and localities. Many of the projects supported blend subsidies from multiple federal sources in order to achieve the depth of subsidy necessary to provide affordable units to those with low incomes. This working paper describes current levels of activity, briefly characterizes the evolution of federal policy, and reviews the primary existing programs…