MVL: Why housing trust funds aren't just about housing

Housing policy isn’t just about housing - it’s a necessary first step toward meeting the comprehensive needs for everyone in our community.

That's the conclusion reached by Mary Brooks in her recent piece in Movement Vision Lab, where she argues for a strong national housing policy and advocates the use of housing trust funds as a step toward achieving it.

The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act of 2007, which is currently in the U.S. Senate, would use Federal Housing Administration (FHA) surplus funds to produce - by rehabilitation or by new construction - 1.5 million units of affordable housing for low-income people by 2010.

The federal Office of Management and Budget projects that in 2010, the four major homeownership tax expenditures will divert $210 billion in tax revenues from public coffers, benefitting mostly wealthy and middle-class Americans.