Housing officials flag EMAP balances, recommend reallocating underused homeless-prevention funds to more effective pipelines

Department of Housing officials briefed the Bonding Subcommittee on the status of multiple housing programs and suggested reallocations for funds that have seen little or no uptake in their statutory form.

Commissioner and staff described the Time to Own (TTO) down-payment program as a 10-year forgivable loan that can reach up to $50,000 per household; they said about 3,500 families purchased homes with TTO assistance in the last two years. On EMAP, officials explained that the department and CHFA used $100 million in federal HAF funds during the pandemic for foreclosure prevention; EMAP's state bond balance (about $5 million) was retained as a backstop in case the federal funds run out. CHFA is administering EMAP lending activity; recent rates for the EMAP product were described in the hearing as low single-digit (around 1.5% historically; recent lending around 2%).

Lawmakers also discussed a statutory homeless-prevention program that proved impractical in operation because it required landlords to take rehabilitative funds and then not collect rents or to lease to homeless households at no cost for extended periods, leading to little landlord uptake. Housing staff recommended reallocating that unspent allocation toward flexible preservation or production programs in the Housing Trust and Flex funds, where there is active pipeline demand.

The department also described a nascent housing-receivership fund intended to help municipalities that pursue receivership actions under local housing code authority; staff said the fund sits idle until municipal receivership actions are initiated because state law requires municipal initiation of court receivership.

Next steps: Housing will work with committee chairs to identify candidate reallocations from underused statutory lines to active production/preservation pipelines and will provide further program-level detail on TTO and EMAP operations as requested.