Innovations In The Use of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits To Create Housing Affordable To People With Extremely Low Incomes

The primary purpose of this project is to examine the most current Qualified Allocation Plans (QAPs) across the United States in order to identify innovations in the use of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTCs) to create housing for people with extremely low incomes (less than 30 percent of Area Median Income), with particular emphasis on housing for people with disabilities. The secondary purpose of this project is to recommend policies that could support the continued inclusion of targeting requirements in North Carolina Housing Finance Agency's Qualified Allocation Plans. North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) and NC Housing Finance Agency (NCHFA) have partnered to require the inclusion of targeted housing for people with disabilities in all new LIHTC developments, and in 2004, they pledged to provide rental assistance for the targeted units that were awarded tax credits in that funding cycle. In order to learn about innovative ways to target units for so-called special populations and for people with extremely low incomes, as well as to find ways to fund rental assistance, NC DHHS contracted with Tara Peele to conduct research of all other states' QAPs and identify relevant policies. Aside from the analysis of current innovative efforts to provide housing for people with extremely low incomes, this project provides a stand-alone document that profiles each state's QAP policies on deep income and special populations targeting, as well as incentives used to increase housing accessibility for people with mobility impairments and strategies to fund rental assistance. Both documents are useful to NC DHHS' efforts to work through NCHFA's tax credit allocation process to increase the supply of affordable housing for people with disabilities and people who are homeless; NC DHHS can use the information on innovations across the country to suggest policies that will address tax credit housing developers' concerns about the required targeting of units in tax credit housing. Specifically, information on what other states are doing to provide developer incentives and fund rental assistance is useful, as well as information on population-neutral targeting (i.e., using wider targeting language 'people with disabilities' rather than the more narrow and specific targeting of people with developmental or physical disabilities).