A bipartisan group of 71 members of the U.S. House of Representatives urged the leaders of the House Appropriations Committee to provide full funding for the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund program in fiscal year 2018.
The preliminary Trump Administration budget proposed cutting the CDFI Fund program as part of a four percent cut to the Treasury Department’s budget. The budget would also cut the Small Business Administration budget by five percent and the Department of Housing and Urban Development budget by 13 percent.
In a letter to the committee chair, the 71 House members reiterated the mission of the CDFI Fund, which seeks to expand the capacity of CDFIs to provide credit, capital, and financial services to underserved populations and communities across the country.
“CDFIs fill a market gap left by insufficient lending from traditional financial institutions, such as commercial banks,” the lawmakers wrote.
The legislators urged the leaders of the House Appropriations Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services to fund the program at the level approved in the 2017 House bill.
The National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions recently sent a letter to House and Senate leaders to emphasize the important relationship between credit unions and the CDFI program. CDFI-certified credit unions represent 27 percent of the total number of certified institutions and hold more than 50 percent of total CDFI assets.