§ 12773. Housing education and organizational support

(a) In general

The Secretary is authorized to provide education and organizational support assistance, in conjunction with other assistance made available under this part—

(1) to facilitate the education of low-income homeowners and tenants;

(2) to promote the ability of community housing development organizations, including community land trusts, to maintain, rehabilitate and construct housing for low-income and moderate-income families in conformance with the requirements of this subchapter; and

(3) to achieve the purposes under paragraphs (1) and (2) by helping women who reside in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods rehabilitate and construct housing in the neighborhoods.

(b) Eligible activities

Assistance under this section may be used only for the following eligible activities:

(1) Organizational support

Organizational support assistance may be made available to community housing development organizations to cover operational expenses and to cover expenses for training and technical, legal, engineering and other assistance to the board of directors, staff, and members of the community housing development organization.

(2) Housing education

Housing education assistance may be made available to community housing development organizations to cover expenses for providing or administering programs for educating, counseling, or organizing homeowners and tenants who are eligible to receive assistance under other provisions of this subchapter.

(3) Program-wide support of nonprofit development and management

Technical assistance, training, and continuing support may be made available to eligible community housing development organizations for managing and conserving properties developed under this subchapter.

(4) Benevolent loan funds

Technical assistance may be made available to increase the investment of private capital in housing for very low-income families, particularly by encouraging the establishment of benevolent loan funds through which private financial institutions will accept deposits at below-market interest rates and make those funds available at favorable rates to developers of low-income housing and to low-income homebuyers.

(5) Community development banks and credit unions

Technical assistance may be made available to establish privately owned, local community development banks and credit unions to finance affordable housing.

(6) Community land trusts

Organizational support, technical assistance, education, training, and continuing support under this subsection may be made available to community land trusts (as such term is defined in subsection (f) of this section) and to community groups for the establishment of community land trusts.

(7) Facilitating women in homebuilding professions

Technical assistance may be made available to businesses, unions, and organizations involved in construction and rehabilitation of housing in low- and moderate-income areas to assist women residing in the area to obtain jobs involving such activities, which may include facilitating access by such women to, and providing, apprenticeship and other training programs regarding nontraditional skills, recruiting women to participate in such programs, providing continuing support for women at job sites, counseling and educating businesses regarding suitable work environments for women, providing information to such women regarding opportunities for establishing small housing construction and rehabilitation businesses, and providing materials and tools for training such women (in an amount not exceeding 10 percent of any assistance provided under this paragraph). The Secretary shall give priority under this paragraph to providing technical assistance for organizations rehabilitating single family or multifamily housing owned or controlled by the Secretary pursuant to title II of the National Housing Act [12 U.S.C. 1707 et seq.] and which have women members in occupations in which women constitute 25 percent or less of the total number of workers in the occupation (in this section referred to as “nontraditional occupations”).

The Secretary shall provide this assistance only through contract—

(1) with a nonprofit intermediary organization that, in the determination of the Secretary—

(A) customarily provides, in more than one community, services related to the provision of decent housing that is affordable to low-income and moderate-income persons or the revitalization of deteriorating neighborhoods;

(B) has demonstrated experience in providing a range of assistance (such as financing, technical assistance, construction and property management assistance, capacity building and training) to community housing development organizations or similar organizations that engage in community revitalization;

(C) has demonstrated the ability to provide technical assistance and training for community-based developers of affordable housing;

(D) has described the uses to which such assistance will be put and the intended beneficiaries of the assistance; and

(E) in the case of activities under subsection (b)(7) of this section, is a community-based organization (as such term is defined in section 4 of the Job Training Partnership Act) or public housing agency, which has demonstrated experience in preparing women for apprenticeship training in construction or administering programs for training women for construction or other nontraditional occupations (and such organizations may use assistance for activities under such subsection to employ women in housing construction and rehabilitation activities to the extent that the organization has the capacity to conduct such activities); or

(2) with another organization, if a participating jurisdiction demonstrates that the organization is qualified to carry out eligible activities and that the jurisdiction would not be served in a timely manner by intermediaries specified under paragraph (1).

Contracts under paragraph (2) shall be for activities specified in an application from the participating jurisdiction, which application shall include a certification that the activities are necessary to the effective implementation of the participating jurisdiction’s housing strategy.

(d) Limitations

Contracts under this section with any one contractor for a fiscal year may not—

(1) exceed 40 percent of the amount appropriated for this section for such fiscal year; or

(2) provide more than 20 percent of the operating budget (which shall not include funds that are passed through to community housing development organizations) of the contracting organization for any one year.

(e) Single-State contractors

Not less than 25 percent of the funds made available for this section in an appropriations Act in any fiscal year shall be made available for eligible contractors that have worked primarily in one State. The Secretary shall provide assistance under this section, to the extent applications are submitted and approved, to contractors in each of the geographic regions having a regional office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

(f) “Community land trust” defined

For purposes of this section, the term “community land trust” means a community housing development organization (except that the requirements under subparagraphs (C) and (D) of section 12704 (6) of this title shall not apply for purposes of this subsection)—

(1) that is not sponsored by a for-profit organization;

(2) that is established to carry out the activities under paragraph (3);

(3) that—

(A) acquires parcels of land, held in perpetuity, primarily for conveyance under long-term ground leases;

(B) transfers ownership of any structural improvements located on such leased parcels to the lessees; and

(C) retains a preemptive option to purchase any such structural improvement at a price determined by formula that is designed to ensure that the improvement remains affordable to low- and moderate-income families in perpetuity;

(4) whose corporate membership that is open to any adult resident of a particular geographic area specified in the bylaws of the organization; and

(5) whose board of directors—

(A) includes a majority of members who are elected by the corporate membership; and

(B) is composed of equal numbers of

(i) lessees pursuant to paragraph (3)(B), (ii) corporate members who are not lessees, and

(iii) any other category of persons described in the bylaws of the organization.

U.S. Code

§ 12773. Housing education and organizational support