National Housing Law Project Housing Law Bulletin

The Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service (RHS) expects the President’s Fiscal Year 1999 budget to include $100 million for the Section 515 rural multifamily housing direct loan program. This represents a reduction in funding from FY 1998 of $50 million. Section 521 rental housing assistance is funded at $573 million, an increase of $32 million over last year’s funding levels. This program will face the same contract renewal challenge experienced in HUD’s Section 8 program.

A big boost was announced in the Section 538 guaranteed multifamily loan program, which debuted last year. Funding is proposed to be increased from $20 million in FY 1998 to $150 million for the coming fiscal year.

The Section 502 single-family direct loan program is level funded at $1 billion, although this represents a dramatic decrease from levels as recent as four years ago when the program was funded at $1.8 billion.

Both the Section 514 farm labor housing loan and Section 516 farm labor housing grant programs experienced some growth over last year, the loan program increasing from $15 million to $32 million, and the grant program increasing from $10 million to $13 million.

Future Bulletins will report on any changes made once the budget is formally submitted to the Congress.