Use these key messages to communicate with your legislators!
The Housing Credit is a model public-private partnership that delivers affordable housing across the country.
- The federal government provides financing and baseline regulations while giving the states maximum flexibility to implement the program to fit their respective eneds.
- Housing Credit properties are located in rural, suburban, and urban areas in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
- The private sector, not the taxpayer, bears all the risk and is closely involved in compliance efforts under the threat of severe penalties from the IRS.
The need for affordable housing is dire.
- Currently, 11.3 million renter households nationwide are considered severely rent-burdened, meaning they pay more than half of their monthly income on rent, leaving far too little for other necessary expenses like healthcare, transportation, and nutritious food.
- In order to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment at the national average fair market rent, a worker earning minimum wage has to work for 80 hours per week.
- Nearly 1.6 million additional affordable homes could be financed across the country by the primary unit-financing provisions of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2025 (AHCIA).
The Housing Credit finances improved access to affordable housing while creating jobs and opportunities.
- From the program’s inception in 1986 through 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, the Housing Credit has developed or preserved 4 million affordable homes nationwide that have served over 9 million low-income households. Additional details of this activity include:
- 6.6 million jobs supported in one year;
- $268.1 billion in tax revenue generated;
- $746.5 billion in wages and business income generated.