Various housing and civil rights organizations have notified the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) that the proposed 2026-2028 Enterprise Housing Goals will worsen the nation’s housing affordability crisis.
A letter signed by the Consumer Federation of America, along with 27 other housing, consumer, and civil rights organizations says that by lowering the low-income and very-low income home purchase goals, up to 177,000 families may lose access to GSE-backed mortgages.
Criticism and Concerns
The letter details how, by lowering the low-income and very-low income home purchase goals, up to 177,000 families may lose access to GSE-backed mortgages. FHFA also seeks to collapse the previously separate “Low-Income Census Tracts Home Purchase Subgoal” and the “Minority Census Tracts Home Purchase Subgoal” into one new overarching subgoal, which would reduce mortgage access in communities of color and deepen racial and socioeconomic disparities in homeownership. These changes effectively encourage Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defy their Congressional directive, to “lead the industry in making mortgage credit available.”
“This rule is a rather blatant example of how this Administration wants to limit access to the American Dream of homeownership and is drawing sharp divisions between who they think deserves access to homeownership and who they see as undeserving buyers,” Sharon Cornelissen, CFA Director of Housing, said in a blog. “Their vision of American prosperity is not only antagonistic and divisive, but deeply exclusive–many working families who may see themselves as middle-class, will find themselves at the losing end of this divide. Urban Institute research has demonstrated that the housing goals have positively impacted mortgage access for lower- to moderate-income families over the last few decades, and have lowered interest rates in markets where Fannie and Freddie have a significant presence. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the goals will result in the purchase of about 37,000 additional eligible mortgages this year and that an estimated 750,000 homebuyers in 2025 will benefit from having a goal-eligible mortgage.”
