WASHINGTON, DC-The National Housing Trust Fund, established in2008 but still languishing in Congress for want of funding, may beremaining on the sidelines for another legislative session. Rightnow it is part of the Senate’s extender bill--a bill better knownto the commercial real estate industry as the vehicle thatcould still usher in a change in carried interest taxcharacterization.

But while the real estate industry is dreading passage of anextender bill that has been altered to include a carried interestprovision, affordable housing advocates are dreading anotherpossibility: that the extender bill won’t pass at all. If itdoesn’t, Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low IncomeHousing Coalition, tells GlobeSt.com, the NHTF will remain inlimbo. “And we will go back to the drawing board to figure out howto make it work.”

It has been a long slog so far. National Housing Trust Fund waspassed in July 2008 with a mission to build, preserve andrehabilitate 1.5 million affordable rental homes for verylow-income households. It was originally authorized with adedicated funding stream from assessments on Fannie Mae and FreddieMac. However when the GSEs were placed in governmentconservatorship, this funding source was taken off the table.