WASHINGTON -- United States Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La. today announced that the U.S. Treasury Department has awarded $114 million to Louisiana Housing Finance Agency (LHFA). This American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) investment will support construction, acquisition and rehabilitation of workforce housing for low-income families and individuals throughout the state.

"In the four years since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Louisiana has struggled to provide affordable housing options in our urban areas and our many rural communities. Those storms, along with Hurricanes Ike and Gustav, decimated the region's rental housing stock, leaving thousands of people homeless and displaced," Sen. Landrieu said. "As federal and state agencies work toward long-term solutions, this $114 million investment from the Recovery Act will allow Louisiana to continue its effort to strategically rebuild and modernize workforce housing across our state."

"I will also continue to work with the Administration on ensuring disaster-impacted states such as Louisiana are able to fully utilize Recovery Act funding to spur redevelopment efforts. A combination of these funds and administrative fixes will put Louisiana on a path to supplying quality housing to people of all income levels."

"This is wonderful news," said Milton Bailey, President, of the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency. "The funds will be used in our continuing efforts to rebuild affordable housing in Louisiana. It will allow us to serve homeless populations, place residents residing in FEMA trailers into suitable rental accommodations and continue the process of recovering our hurricane displaced residents. We applaud President Obama for taking this first step toward meeting his campaign commitment of helping Louisiana and Gulf Coast communities recover in the wake of hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike. We look forward to receiving the approval necessary from Treasury Secretary Geithner that will allow us to exchange our GO Zone and disaster credits under Section 1602 of ARRA as well."

With the economic downturn, developers have found it difficult to monetize the Low-Income Housing Tax Credits they have been awarded. This has created an affordable housing financing shortage, stalling thousands of projects nationwide. In order to address this dislocation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act created an opportunity for states to exchange a portion of their credits for 85 cents on the dollar -- providing an estimated $3 billion in grants to help jumpstart stalled projects in 2009. However, ARRA is ambiguous about the disposition of so-called "disaster credits" -- extra housing credits allocated to thirteen states under the GO Zone Act of 2005 and the Heartland Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2008. The U.S. Department of Treasury has ruled that current law does not permit inclusion of disaster credits in the exchange.

To address this issue, Senator Landrieu was an original cosponsor of the DisasterState Housing Recovery Act (S. 1326). The bill would ensure that disaster states, including Louisiana, are able to monetize special allocations of credits Congress provided to help recovery from recent natural disasters.