In The News

Community Matters Newsletter – Fall 2012 Advocacy is an integral component of Mercy Housing’s mission. We work to be a catalyst that causes our nation’s leaders to find ways to close the gap between the supply and demand for affordable housing. As part of our advocacy efforts, Mercy Housing leadership has been hosting tours for

Mercy Housing’s Policy staff recently met with Senate members of the Gang of 8, an ad-hoc Senate committee seeking to create a bipartisan deficit reduction package to replace sequestration, the devastating $1.1 trillion package of spending cuts scheduled to go into effect January 1st, 2013 unless Congress agrees to a more balanced deficit reduction package.

Tuesday night was obviously a big election night across the country. Locally, affordable housing got a huge win in San Francisco with the passage of Prop C. An amazing 65 percent of San Franciscans voted to provide $1.2 billion to affordable housing over the next 30 years. Clearly, San Francisco voters and elected officials continue

Our nation has had a wild ride leading up to yesterday’s announcement of President Obama’s re-election. A special thanks to our Resident Services staff throughout the country for making sure that Mercy Housing residents were registered to vote and informed about their civic rights and responsibilities. Congress and the President have some huge issues to

October 2012 Affordable Housing Finance Mercy Housing CEO Sister Lillian Murphy, RSM, was recently featured in Affordable Housing Finance Magazine’s 2012 election guide. This election could have major impacts on the affordable housing industry. When asked about the top housing priority for the incoming 113th Congress, Sister Lillian responded: “Preserve the LIHTC, New Markets Tax

Our Public Policy and Advocacy Team has been hard at work trying to continue support for key Community Development Financial Institution programs. Julie Gould, Mercy Loan Fund President and Senior Vice President of Public Policy Advocacy, recently signed on to the following letters: “Restart the Clock” on the CDFI Bond Guarantee Program Delays in implementation

Mercy Loan Fund President Julie Gould signed on to the following letter supporting key CDFI programs: Delays in implementation have cost the CDFI industry two, and possibly three, years of the id=”mce_marker” billion per year available through the CDFI Bond Guarantee Program created in 2010. Join Opportunity Finance Network in urging Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner

Mercy Housing is only one of many groups trying to influence Congressional opinions, so it’s not often that we can point to someone increasing their support for housing and community development programs and say “that was definitely us.” As always, this example comes to you courtesy of the hard work in the community that you

This letter summarizes our recent response to a HUD proposal to engage CDFIs on preserving small, unsubsidized rental projects. “Naturally affordable” multifamily properties of less than 50 units account for a much greater proportion of the affordable housing stock than government-assisted housing. For a mechanism, HUD proposed that GNMA-servicer-certified CDFIs would provide permanent debt for

Important conversations are taking place about the future of the affordable housing sector even in this election year, and Mercy Housing is joining in! Sr. Lillian recently testified in front of the Bipartisan Policy Council’s Housing Commission at a regional forum in St. Louis. She spoke on the following key points (Read her full testimony):