Legislative State-of-Play
AHCIA Reintroduced in the House; Senate Reintroduction Expected Tomorrow!
On April 8, House Housing Credit champions Representatives Darin LaHood (R-IN), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Don Beyer (D-VA), Randy Feenstra (R-IA), and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) reintroduced the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2025 (AHCIA, H.R. 2725). Including lead sponsors, the bill had 119 original cosponsors, divided evenly by party. That is over one-quarter of the House of Representatives! The number of original cosponsors far exceeded the previous record of 66 original cosponsors, including leads, set in 118th Congress. Support has only grown since then. As of this writing, 131 House members have signed on.
The large number of original cosponsors indicates how significant the affordable housing crisis is in every corner of the country and demonstrates the degree of broad support for the Housing Credit and how seriously Congress is taking the affordable housing crisis. The list contains representatives who have never cosponsored the AHCIA before and also includes freshmen who were barely 100 days into their new jobs in Congress when this bill was reintroduced. Members of House leadership and committee leadership from both parties are among the original cosponsors.
Senators Todd Young (R-IN), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) are poised to reintroduce the AHCIA in the Senate tomorrow. There are currently 16 other senators planning to join them as original cosponsors, for a total of at least 20 senators – a strong start with more to come. The House and Senate AHCIA bills will be identical.
Read more in this ACTION blog post. Check out ACTION’s just-updated Advocacy Toolkit for national, state, and district fact sheets, as well as many other education and advocacy resources for your congressional outreach to help us build on the momentum.
Local Government Leaders’ Letter in Support of Housing Credit
ACTION is organizing a local government leaders’ letter to Congress in support of the Housing Credit and the AHCIA. Please reach out to your mayors, county board chairs, county executives, and equivalent elected officials from local governments to urge them to sign on by Tuesday, May 6, at 5pm ET. In 2023, 184 local leaders signed a similar letter, so if your local leader signed that one, be sure to remind them. ACTION thanks its partners in this effort, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, and Mayors & CEOs for U.S. Housing Investment.
Organizational Sign-On Letter in Support of Housing Credit
ACTION will be sending an organizational sign-on letter from our grassroots members to Congress in support of the AHCIA and urging Congress to enact Housing Credit priorities in the tax package currently being negotiated. The deadline for organizations to sign the letter is close of business on Friday, May 2.
April AHCIA Cosponsorship Update
The AHCIA currently has 30 percent of the House cosponsoring, with supporters evenly divided by Republicans and Democrats. In the House, there were 12 new cosponsors this past month, bringing the total number of cosponsors there to 131.
- Josh Harder (D-CA-09)
- Jeff Crank (R-CO-05)
- Deborah Ross (D-NC-02)
- John Rose (R-TN-06)
- Bill Keating (D-MA-09)
- Lloyd Smucker (R-PA-11)
- Jim McGovern (D-MA-02)
- Andy Ogles (R-TN-05)
- Eric Swalwell (D-CA-14)
- Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-04)
- Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA-05)
- Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23)
Status of Reconciliation
Congressional Republicans in both chambers have passed a final budget resolution that unlocks their ability to advance much of the Administration’s legislative agenda via reconciliation, thus bypassing the Senate filibuster and requiring only a simple majority in both the House and Senate to pass. This modified resolution instructs both the House and Senate to cut taxes, opening up the door for the Housing Credit to potentially be included.
The resolution contains several notable developments from the original, separate House- and Senate-passed ones. Most notably, it instructs the Senate to take a “current policy baseline” approach, which, as covered in the previous newsletter, assumes a $0 cost for extensions of existing temporary tax policy (i.e., provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017). This would make room for other tax priorities beyond extensions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It is crucial for us to get the Housing Credit expansion ACTION supports included.
The budget resolution instructs committees to finalize legislative text by May 9, though that deadline is not binding. Congressional committees are beginning to schedule their markups for their portions of the reconciliation bill. The House Ways and Means Committee is exploring a markup on May 12 and 13, though the committee has not confirmed these dates. Senate action on the bill will follow House action.
Congressional leaders have said they plan to have the bill to the President by Memorial Day, and while this could be overly optimistic on their part, it is certainly possible that the bill could be done by early summer as White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett and Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent have recently predicted.
Finalizing the budget resolution was the first major obstacle to the tax bill, but challenges remain as Congress now turns to the fine print details. One of those challenges is the different instructions the budget resolution provides to House and Senate committees, including how they may account for the cost of extending expiring tax policy and how much spending to cut and from where. Fiscal hawks in both chambers remain concerned about federal spending and are pushing for more cuts, while moderates remain concerned that the potential spending cuts could go too far.
ACTION will keep members apprised of the latest developments. It is essential that Housing Credit advocates continue to reach out to Congress and underscore the importance of including the AHCIA’s production provisions in the tax package to address the affordable housing supply shortage. There are also many new Members of Congress we must educate on the Housing Credit’s proven track record and impact in their districts and states.
Administration Updates
IRS Publishes 2025 Population Data for Housing Credit
On April 14, the IRS published Internal Revenue Bulletin 2025-16, containing 2025 population information for the Housing Credit used to determine each state’s 9 Percent Credit authority amount for the calendar year in accordance with the per-capita and small state minimum amounts set in IRS Revenue Procedure 2024-40. Learn more from this blog by ACTION member Novogradac & Co.
HUD Publishes Changes to Income Limits for Housing Credit Properties
Executive Branch Staff Reductions
The Administration is continuing its significant reduction in workforce across multiple federal departments and agencies, including at HUD, the IRS, and USDA’s Rural Housing Service (RHS). On April 17, a presidential memorandum was issued extending an existing hiring freeze for most federal positions through July 15.
While the Housing Credit is largely administered by state agencies, ACTION is concerned that major staffing reductions could impact other housing programs that are used to fill financing gaps in Housing Credit properties or provide rental assistance.
ACTION Membership
In April, the ACTION Campaign welcomed 22 new members to the coalition. Please join us in welcoming the following new members:
- 2Life Communities, Massachusetts
- Volunteers of America – Greater New York, New York
- Rowlett & Company, Alabama
- CRM Residential, New Jersey
- Regional Plan Association, New York
- Far West Helping Foundation Corp., Florida
- From Caterpillars 2 Butterflies, California
- California Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies, California
- Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness, Rhode Island
- Clear Choice Mortgage Solutions, Mississippi
- Great Lakes Capital, Indiana
- Joy Construction Corp., New York
- Volunteers of America – Northern California and Northern Nevada, California and Nevada
- Mental Health Association in New Jersey, New Jersey
- Stockbridge Housing Authority, Massachusetts
- LIHTC Leaders, Texas
- Spokane Housing Authority, Washington
- Argentum, national
- Northland Collective Development, Ohio
- Community Alternatives for Support Abodes (CASA), North Carolina
- Puget Sound Regional Council, Washington
- Team WS, Ohio
Help ACTION continue to grow our membership and advocacy strength by encouraging your networks to support affordable housing and the Housing Credit by joining the coalition. Membership is free. Together, we can demonstrate to Members of Congress the widespread support for the Housing Credit across the country. You can also help strengthen our reach by following the ACTION Campaign’s LinkedIn page and inviting your connections to follow and join us.
Housing Credit Research
- An April study in the Journal of Urban Health suggests that the presence of affordable housing financed by the Housing Credit in a given neighborhood is associated with an almost 68 percent reduction in the difference in the odds of elevated blood pressure between Black and white residents, regardless of whether the patients actually lived in the Housing Credit property, compared to neighborhoods without any Housing Credit homes. The authors suggest that the Housing Credit helps revitalize communities and provide housing stability for residents, thereby improving housing stability and thus reducing racial health disparities related to blood pressure.
Housing Credit in the News
- The National Governors Association recently published its 2025 federal policies resolution, which included urging Congress and the Administration to expand the Housing Credit to increase the supply of affordable housing.
- An April 2 blog post by the Urban Institute explains the successes of the Housing Credit, among other things, and suggests that Congress could pass the AHCIA to increase the supply of affordable housing.
- An April 8 article in Affordable Housing Finance covers the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House.
- An April 8 article in the Peoria Standard covers the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House.
- An April 8 article in the Sioux City Times covers the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House.
- An April 8 article in Accounting Today covers the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House.
- An April 8 article in WIFR covers the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House and features an interview with AHCIA lead sponsor Rep. Darin LaHood.
- An April 9 article in Bond Buyer covers the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House.
- An April 9 Politico Pro newsletter mentions the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House.
- An April 10 blog post by BRC covers the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House.
- An April 11 article in The Real Deal covers the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House and its prospects for inclusion in reconciliation.
- An April 11 article in WRE News covers the reintroduction of the AHCIA in the House.
- An April 14 article in Affordable Housing Finance takes a deep dive into the AHCIA’s reintroduction and the bill’s prospects for this Congress.
- In an April 16 interview with Politico, Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE-01), an AHCIA original cosponsor and Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, notes how the Housing Credit is a very effective program at addressing the affordable housing crisis, saying “we need more of this.”
