Housing Group Files Suit Against FHFA

The ""Federal Housing Finance Agency"":http://www.fhfa.gov/ (FHFA) and its acting director, Edward DeMarco, are facing a lawsuit from a housing group for allegedly failing to uphold the GSEs' obligations to make contributions to a housing trust fund.

[IMAGE]

The ""National Low Income Housing Coalition"":http://nlihc.org/ announced the suit Tuesday. According to the group, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have not met their requirements to pay into the National Housing Trust Fund, a fund established in 2008 to build, preserve, rehabilitate, and operate affordable rental housing for the lowest income Americans. Law requires the enterprises to transfer a [COLUMN_BREAK]

portion of the value of their new business into the fund, though it was suspended when they were taken into conservatorship.

""The time has long past for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be supporting the National Housing Trust Fund as Congress meant for them to do,"" said Sheila Crowley, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. ""The delay caused by the Federal Housing Finance Agency is unconscionable given the growing shortage of housing that is affordable for the lowest income Americans.""

According to the group's announcement, the GSEs should have paid approximately $382 million into the fund in 2012, based on filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

""Given the strong financial position of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the conditions that prompted the suspension in 2008 no longer exist. All suspended payments since the first quarter of 2012 should be applied to the National Housing Trust Fund. Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director DeMarco has failed to lift the suspensions, thereby neglecting the companies statutory obligations to support affordable housing,"" the coalition said.

The group is joined in its suit by the ""Right to the City Alliance"":http://www.righttothecity.org/ and four individual plaintiffs.