Financing Rental Housing under the HOME Program

Copies of Model Programs are available through Community Connections (http://www.comcon.org/).

HUD-1794-CPD, January 2000

Approximately one-third of the households in the United States live in rented dwellings.

An even greater number of low-income families rent their homes instead of owning them.

The HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) Program offers a tool for communities to expand and improve the supply of affordable, decent, and safe rental housing for low-income households.

Since HOME funding began flowing into rental projects in 1992, the program has become a key component of affordable rental housing development and finance.

Because the program is flexible and offers a wide range of project financing options, participating jurisdiction staff will need to have an understanding of four major concepts in order to successfully implement HOME-funded rental housing projects.

These concepts are:

• Understanding how the rental housing market works in their community;
  
  
• Knowing what the HOME rules are and how to implement them in rental housing projects;
  
  
• Understanding the most cost efficient ways to use limited HOME dollars and the implications of these funding decisions; and
  
  
• Understanding how rental housing projects are developed and managed.