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Nov. 7, 2013 – NAFCU will be following today's Senate Banking Committee hearing on the essentials needed to provide affordable housing options.

As part of an ongoing series exploring housing finance reform, the committee will meet in an open session to discuss, "Housing Finance Reform: Essential Elements to Provide Affordable Options for Housing." Witnesses at today's hearing include: NAACP Washington Bureau Executive Director Hilary O. Shelton; National Association of Home Builders Chairman Rick Judson; National Low Income Housing Coalition President and CEO Sheila Crowley; American Action Forum President Douglas Holtz-Eakin; and National Housing Conference Vice President for Policy and Advocacy Ethan Handelman.

Much of the Senate housing finance reform discussion has surrounded S. 1217, the "Secondary Mortgage Market Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013," by Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Mark Warner, D-Va., which focuses on government-sponsored enterprise reform.

NAFCU's primary concerns in this debate is to ensure that credit unions, as not-for-profit cooperatives, continue to have guaranteed access to the secondary mortgage market and that any reforms ensure fair pricing based on the quality of loan underwriting, not volume.