GSE Reform & Housing Trust Fund

Wisconsin Partnership for Housing Development Executive Director, Bill Perkins, wrote an editorial for his newsletter, "The Way It Looks To Me" which is a platform that he uses to offer commentary on housing issues. Go take a look-he's always worth reading!  It covers the options for housing finance reform that I discussed briefly the other day. 

At the end, he mentions that the Obama Administration  "... stands behind its commitment to a national housing trust fund."  That contradicts my thought-without seeing the report-that "(t)his pretty much ends the hope that the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund could be fully funded by Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac in the future."

Looking at the report, it states:

Although FHA and other federal affordable housing policies do a great deal to provide access and affordability, we recognize that a more balanced system will require additional resources to address clear gaps. The Administration will thus advocate for a dedicated, budget-neutral financing mechanism to support homeownership and rental housing objectives that current policies cannot adequately address. This funding stream would support the development and preservation of more affordable rental housing for the lowest-income families to address serious supply shortages, similar to the Housing Trust Fund that the President has proposed to be capitalized.

 
While this is encouraging, it disturbs me that there appears to be no actual details on how this funding stream would be created.  This also actually reads to me more like they're proposing something separate from the Housing Trust Fund.  I'm hoping this is just worded badly because what they're describing is exactly what the Housing Trust Fund is supposed to do.  Why not just identify a stream of funds for the Trust Fund itself?

Update:  Ed Gramlich at the National Low-Income Housing Coalition sent me the following (links mine, but FYI, large documents):

Regarding the FY12 Budget proposal, the NHTF IS there at $1B (page 571), and especially important – HUD proposes this to be on the “mandatory” side of the budget…meaning that NHTF does not compete with other HUD programs such as HOME (A separate document “Terminations, Reductions, and Savings” (page 120) implies that NHTF competes with HOME). Secretary Donovan’s verbal remarks made it VERY clear that NHTF is mandatory and does not compete.