The Case for Bipartisan Housing Policy

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit was created in 1986 under President Ronald Reagan as part of the Tax Reform Act. It was a Republican president who signed into law the most successful affordable housing program in American history. That fact is worth sitting with for a moment, because it tells you something important about housing policy: when it works, it works across the aisle.

I have spent my career in the space where policy meets development. As Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission from 2009 to 2017, I was nominated by Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, and confirmed by the Missouri Senate on a bipartisan basis. The commission I served on administered the Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the Missouri LIHTC, and the Affordable Housing Assistance Tax Credit. The members came from different political backgrounds. The votes were not partisan. They were about whether a project would serve families, whether the financing was sound, and whether the developer could deliver.

That experience taught me that affordable housing is one of the few policy areas where bipartisan cooperation is not just possible. It is the norm. And it needs to stay that way.

LIHTC is a tax credit, not a government spending program. That distinction matters politically. The credit incentivizes private investment in affordable housing by allowing investors to reduce their federal tax liability in exchange for equity in affordable housing developments. The government does not build the housing. Private developers do. The government does not own the housing. Private entities do. The government creates the incentive, and the private market responds.

This structure appeals to both sides of the political spectrum. Fiscal conservatives support LIHTC because it leverages private capital rather than expanding direct government spending. It uses market mechanisms to achieve a public policy goal. Progressives support LIHTC because it produces affordable housing for families who need it, serving residents at the lowest income levels in communities across the country.

Since 1986, LIHTC has financed the construction or rehabilitation of millions of affordable housing units. No other program comes close. And it has maintained bipartisan support through every administration, Republican and Democrat, for nearly four decades.

When Governor Nixon nominated me to the Missouri Housing Development Commission, the confirmation process required a vote of the Missouri Senate. That Senate was not a body where partisan votes were unusual. But my confirmation was bipartisan. Senators on both sides voted to put me on the commission because they understood that housing is not a partisan issue. Families in Republican districts need affordable housing. Families in Democratic districts need affordable housing. The need does not care about party affiliation.

During my eight years as Vice Chairman, I never once saw a LIHTC allocation decision break along party lines. The debates were about geography, about whether rural projects were getting a fair share compared to urban ones, about per unit costs, about which populations were being underserved. Those are legitimate policy debates, and they happened within a bipartisan framework that both sides respected.

My bipartisan experience did not start at MHDC. In 1996, at 26 years old, I was nominated by Governor Mel Carnahan and confirmed by the Missouri Senate to the University of Missouri Board of Curators, becoming the first African American to hold the position in the university system's history. That confirmation was also bipartisan. The Senate confirmed me because the question was not about party. It was about whether I could serve over 55,000 college students throughout the state of Missouri effectively.

These experiences shaped my understanding of how policy is supposed to work. When the question is framed around outcomes, around families served, students educated, communities strengthened, the partisan noise fades. When the question becomes about scoring political points, the families lose.

Today, at The Nash Group, we are building 254 or more affordable housing units across Kansas City and St. Louis with over $100 million in total development costs. Every one of those units depends on LIHTC, the bipartisan program that has been the backbone of affordable housing for nearly four decades.

The Mabion, our $19.3 million development bringing 57 homes to Beacon Hill in Kansas City, is a 4% federal LIHTC deal. Promise Place, our 85 unit development serving families at 30 to 60 percent of Area Median Income, is also a 4% federal deal backed by significant city resources. The Ville Wellness Campus in North St. Louis is a $75 million project integrating 120 affordable housing units with a 45,000 square foot health center.

None of these projects would exist without LIHTC. None of them would exist without the bipartisan consensus that created and sustained the program. When elected officials on both sides of the aisle agree that affordable housing matters, developers can build. When that consensus fractures, families pay the price.

Bipartisan support for LIHTC has held for decades, but it is not guaranteed. Every few years, tax reform conversations raise the possibility of changes to the credit. Rate adjustments, cap modifications, and program restructuring proposals all emerge when Congress takes up the tax code. Each of these conversations has the potential to weaken the program that millions of families depend on.

The developer community has a responsibility to make the case for LIHTC to both parties, in language that both parties understand. To fiscal conservatives: LIHTC leverages private investment, creates jobs, generates property tax revenue, and revitalizes neighborhoods without expanding government ownership of housing. To progressives: LIHTC produces more affordable housing than any other program in American history and serves the families who need it most.

Both of those statements are true simultaneously. That is the power of a bipartisan program.

I teach in the Executive MBA Program at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management, and I direct the Lewis White Real Estate Center. My students come from across the political spectrum. When we discuss affordable housing policy, I tell them the same thing I am writing here: the most productive policy conversations happen when both sides focus on outcomes instead of ideology.

LIHTC works because it was designed to work for everyone. The investor gets a tax benefit. The developer gets equity. The city gets new housing stock and increased property tax revenue. The family gets a home. When a policy delivers outcomes for every stakeholder, the partisan incentive to oppose it disappears.

That is the model. And it is worth defending.

Where you live shapes who you become. I know this because I grew up in Section 8 public housing in Kansas City, raised by a single mother with six children. The housing I grew up in was made possible by government programs. The housing I build today is made possible by LIHTC, a program that exists because a Republican president and a bipartisan Congress agreed in 1986 that affordable housing was worth investing in.

That agreement has held for nearly 40 years. It has housed millions of families. It has created an entire industry of developers, investors, syndicators, and service providers dedicated to building affordable housing in every state in the country. It is one of the great success stories of American public policy, and it happened because both parties said yes.

The case for bipartisan housing policy is not theoretical. It is 57 homes at The Mabion. It is 85 families at Promise Place. It is 120 units at the Ville Wellness Campus. It is every family that will sleep in an affordable home tonight because somewhere, at some point, both sides of the aisle decided that housing matters more than politics.

That is the case. That is the commitment. And that is the work.

Dr. Troy Nash is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC. He served as Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission (2009-2017), confirmed by the Missouri Senate on a bipartisan basis. He currently serves as a Professor in the Executive MBA Program and Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management.