Among the many stumbling blocks to achieving bipartisan housing finance reform are deep-seated differences in lawmakers views on the role of government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), or their potential successors, in affordable housing. Lack of bipartisan consensus on access and affordability issues helped derail previous legislative reform efforts and remains a considerable hurdle.

This report begins a series that shifts the focus of the philosophical debate over how and how much to support affordable housing, and focuses instead on the effectiveness of the measures we have in place today. 

Resources generated as part of housing finance reform can provide much-needed support to a federal housing assistance system which, today, barely serves one in four eligible households.