Report Calls for Better Locating of LIHTC Developments

The Poverty & Race Research Action Council recently released a study called “Creating Balance in the Locations of LIHTC Developments: The Role of Qualified Allocation Plans.” The report points out that the LIHTC program has developed about 2.4 million units. And since the early 1990s, LIHTC has been the only program that has added substantial numbers of subsidized projects to the U.S. rental housing stock. In addition, the housing voucher program currently assists about 2.5 million households—with some overlap, since vouchers frequently are used to rent units in LIHTC projects (Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy 2012).

The paper is based on the premise that an effort is needed to create a better balance between locating LIHTC projects in “high-opportunity” communities and locating them in neighborhoods where substantial numbers of poor people and minorities currently live. The paper also focuses on the way in which the administrators of LIHTC—agencies of state governments—can use the systems through which they allocate tax credit authority to change the balance of LIHTC locations so that the program does a better job of helping low-income families and racial minorities live in areas with good schools, superior public services and health care, and access to jobs. The report can be found online at www.prrac.org.

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