Wednesday, October 10, 2007 Statement by Congressman Chris Van Hollen on the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act of 2007 Mr. Chairman, first let me thank Chairman Frank and Subcommittee Chair Waters for their work on this important, bipartisan bill.   The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund will help provide funding for low-income families who, absent this assistance, may not be able to afford their own home.  There are many dedicated Government agencies, non-profits, for-profits and community and faith-based organizations who will seek to participate in this important program.   To ensure that the most productive housing projects are funded--projects dedicated to funding sustainable, successful programs--I am proposing an amendment to introduce a measure of longer term accountability to the trust fund application process.   This bill establishes two levels of applicant-centered accountability:   A trust fund applicant must describe the types of projects he intends to support and must establish performance goals, benchmarks and timetables to help measure the projects' success--later, the applicant must produce a report describing the progress of those projects during that fiscal year.   Because the applicant is only required to report on his projects for that year, this process, despite its commonsense ambitions--effectively breaks the chain of accountability between the grantee and his projects at the end of the fiscal year.   This amendment will maintain that chain of accountability by requiring that any previous grantee who seeks funding from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund provide as part of his application a progress report on the previous projects funded by his organization with funds from this trust fund.   The Affordable Housing Trust Fund will produce billions of dollars worth of grants. HUD does not have the resources to monitor all the projects funded with these funds.  The government will therefore have to rely on grantees to shoulder part of the burden.  When grantees return for additional assistance each year, they will be required to update HUD on the success of their previous trust-funded projects.   I encourage my colleagues to support my amendment and help ensure that the real beneficiaries of this important program are the low-income families it was created to help.