Federal Reports

CBO Comprehensive Report on Federal Housing Spending: November 3, 2009, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a comprehensive and detailed study of Federal Housing Spending in FY 2009. The Oregon Housing Blog’s Tom Cusack calls the report “the definitive study of ALL sources of federal funding including appropriations, tax expenditures, Recovery Act, TARP etc. It is the most current, comprehensive, objective, concise summary of federal spending for housing I have ever seen.” Click here to read the 8-page PDF report: CBO 11-03-HousingPrograms. You can also find the underlying data (an Excel worksheet) and a blog post from the CBO Director on the CBO web page, here.

HUD Paper Finds Increased Vacancies Have Not Helped Low-Income Renters: Increased rental vacancy rates nationwide have not translated into greater availability of homes affordable to low income households and the assisted stock in particular has remained tight, according to a HUD working paper on the U.S. rental housing market released December 22, 2009. The paper also finds strong evidence of a trend, suspected by housing advocates, towards households moving in together to save on housing costs. Click here to read the report: FinalReport_Rental_Housing_Conditions_Working_Paper

Federal Policy

Summary of ARRA-Homelessness Prevention and Rapid ReHousing Program (HPRP) From El Dorado County, California

The Harvard Joint Center published a report December 2009 on the Causes, Consequences, Responses, and Proposed Correctives for the disruption of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. To read the report, click here: Disruption of the LIHTC Program 2009

Federal Regulation

HUD Semi Annual Regulatory Agenda Includes 60 Regulatory Actions: The HUD Fall 2009 Semi Annual Regulatory Agenda was published around January 1, 2010. The Semi Annual agenda provides recap of status of regulations, including completed and plans for future. Click here for a link to a HUD narrative about their regulatory priorities. Links to details for each of the 60 regulatory actions are live in the PDF file Tom Cusack at the Oregon Housing Blog constructed by clicking here.

Federal Links

IRS Tax Statistics - www.irs.ustreas.gov/prod/tax_stats/exempt.html

Users can download information on exempt organizations, foundations, charitable trusts, and products and services including statistics of income for organizations.

Nonprofit Gateway - www.nonprofit.gov
Links to government agency homepages for information on grants and non-financial support. Sections include: Department/Agency gateways, Directory of Federal Government, Information services and links, and nonprofit resources.

OMB Watch – www.ombwatch.org
As the name implies, OMB Watch monitors governmental processes at the Office of Management and Budget. The organization focuses on five main areas: Budget and government performance issues; Regulatory and government accountability; Information for democracy and community; Nonprofit advocacy and other cross-cutting nonprofit issues; and Nonprofit policy and technology. The comprehensive Nonprofit Issues section presents news and analysis on issues affecting nonprofits. An online newsletter, OMBWatcher is available.

GuideStar - http://www.guidestar.org
GuideStar’s mission is to promote philanthropy by helping donors, institutional funders, and charities become more informed, effective, and efficient. Site contains GuideStar’s searchable database of more than 700,000 U.S. nonprofit organizations, donor resources, news and information.

The National Center for Charitable Statistics – http://nccs.urban.org
The National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) is the national repository of data on the nonprofit sector in the United States. Its mission is to develop and disseminate high quality data on nonprofit organizations and their activities for use in research on the relationships between the nonprofit sector, government, the commercial sector, and the broader civil society. The site provides access to information derived primarily from data supplied by tax-exempt nonprofit organizations to the Internal Revenue Service.

The Progressive Directory – www.igc.apc.org

A project of the Institute for Global Communications, this annotated directory offers nearly 1900 links to organizations and nonprofits involved in social justice issues. The site also provides information on advocacy and discussion forums and news by topic.