Section 1. Short Title and Table of Contents. States that the act may be cited as the "American Homeownership and Economic Opportunity Act of 1999."

Section 2. Findings and purpose. Congressional findings are that expanding homeownership opportunities should be a national priority, that there is an abundance of conventional capital available, and that communities possess ample will and creativity to provide opportunities uniquely designed to assist their citizens to achieve homeownership. Purposes of the act are to encourage homeownership by families not otherwise able to afford homeownership, to promote the ability of the private sector to produce affordable housing without excessive government regulation, to expand homeownership through tax incentives such as the home mortgage-interest deduction, and to facilitate the availability of capital for homeownership opportunities.

Section 101. Short title. This title may be referred to as the "Housing Affordability Barrier Removal Act of 1999."

Section 102. Housing impact analysis. Requires that all proposed federal regulations include a housing impact analysis so that a federal agency can certify that a proposed regulation would have no significant deleterious impact upon housing affordability. If a proposed rule would have a negative impact, then an opportunity is given to groups to offer an alternative that achieves the stated objectives with a less deleterious impact on housing. HUD is directed to create model impact analyses that other agencies can use for these purposes.

Section 103. Grants for regulatory barrier removal strategies. Authorizes $15 million through FY 2003 for grants to States, local governments, and eligible consortia for regulatory barrier removal strategies. This is a reauthorization of the same amount under an already existing CDBG setaside (Section 107(a)(1)(H)). Grants provided for these purposes must be used in coordination with the local comprehensive housing affordability strategy ("CHAS").

Section 104. Eligibility for community development block grants. Requires a jurisdiction as a condition of eligibility under the CDBG program to make a good faith effort to reduce barriers to affordable housing identified in the CHAS submitted by the jurisdiction to HUD, without creating any new private right of action.

Section 105. Regulatory barriers clearinghouse. Creates within HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research a "Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse" to collect and disseminate information on, among other things, the prevalence of regulatory barriers and their effects on availability of affordable housing, and successful barrier removal strategies.

Section 201. Study of Mandatory Inspection Requirement for Single-Family Mortgage Insurance. Requires a GAO study of the inspection process for FHA properties, comparing or estimating the potential financial losses and savings to the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund between a system that would require a mandatory FHA inspection and the current optional inspection. The study would also review the potential impact of a mandatory FHA system on the homebuying process, particularly including underserved areas where FHA losses are the greatest and whether there is a housing quality and/or financial difference in inspected homes and those without inspections. The study would also review the current option practice and report whether consumers understand the availability of independent inspections, financed by FHA and whether their choices for an inspection are affected or pressured by market or economic forces.

Section 202. Extension of Loan Term for Manufactured Home Lots. Extends the loan terms for manufactured home lots financed by insured financial institutions from 15 years, 32 days to 20 years, 32 days.

Sec. 203. Neighborhood Teacher Program. Allows the sale of FHA single-family properties at discounted prices to teachers.

Sec. 204. Insurance for mortgages to refinance existing home equity conversion mortgages. Allows seniors to maximize the equity in their homes by streamlining the process of refinancing an existing Federal-insured reverse mortgage.

Sec. 205. Report on title I home improvement loan program. Requires HUD within one year of enactment of this act to provide Congress with a report containing recommendations for improvements to the property improvement loan insurance program under title I of the National Housing Act. In determining such recommendations, the Secretary shall consult with interested persons and organizations, including the lending industry and consumer organizations.

Section 301. Down-payment assistance. PHAs are authorized to provide down-payment assistance in the form of a single grant, in lieu of monthly assistance. Such down-payment assistance shall not exceed the total amount of monthly assistance received by the tenant for the first year of assistance. For FY 2000 and thereafter, assistance under this section shall be available to the extent sums are appropriated.

Section 401. Reauthorization. Reauthorizes the Community Development Block Grant program at $4.75 billion for FY 2000 and at such sums as may be appropriated thereafter through 2004.

Section 402. Prohibition of Set-Asides. Prohibits set-asides within the CDBG program.

Section 403. Homeownership for Municipal Employees. Provides that a mayor or local governing official may use CDBG funds to assist certain municipal employees to purchase homes within their jurisdiction. These employees would be uniformed municipal employees (police, sanitation workers, firemen) and teachers. Assistance can take the form of downpayment assistance, help with closing costs, housing counseling, or subsidizing mortgage rates. Eligible employees are those with incomes at or below 115% of area median income.

Section 404. Technical Amendment relating to Brownfields. Makes environmental cleanup and economic development activities related to Brownfields a permanently eligible activity under Community Development Block Grants by permanently amending the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974.

Section 405. Housing opportunities for persons with AIDS. Reauthorizes the Housing Opportunities For People with AIDS Program (HOPWA) at $225 million for FY 2000, and thereafter at such sums as may be appropriated through 2004.

Section 501. Reauthorization. Reauthorizes the HOME Investment Partnerships Program through FY 2003, at $1.6 billion for FY 2000 and at such sums as may be appropriated thereafter through 2004.

Section 502. Eligibility of limited equity cooperatives and mutual housing associations. Amends HOME to make eligible mutual housing associations and limited equity cooperatives.

Section 503. Leveraging affordable housing investment through local loan pools. Allows HOME funds to be used as leverage in connection with the creation of greater "loan pools" (ten times the amount of the HOME funds invested in such a pool) without imposing the HOME income restrictions on the entire pool (i.e. allows "mixed-income" pools.

Section 504. Loan guarantees. Creates a HOME Loan Guarantee program, by adding a provision allowing the Secretary to guarantee (similar to CDBG loan guarantees) the obligations of participating jurisdictions made in connection with affordable housing efforts by pledging as security a participating jurisdiction's future HOME allocations (up to five times the latest allocation).

Section 505. Homeownership for Municipal Employees. Provides that a mayor or local governing official may use HOME funds to assist certain municipal employees to purchase homes within their jurisdiction. These employees would be uniformed municipal employees (police, sanitation workers, firemen) and teachers. Assistance can take the form of downpayment assistance, help with closing costs, housing counseling, or subsidizing mortgage rates. Eligible employees are those with incomes at or below 115% of area median income.

Section 601. Reauthorization of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. Reauthorizes the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation at $90 million for FY 2000 $90 million thereafter through FY 2003.

Section 602. Homeownership zones. Provides grants for use in "Homeownership Zones", which are designated areas in which large scale development projects are designed to reclaim distressed neighborhoods by creating homeownership opportunities for low and moderate income families. Authorizes $25 million in grants for FY 2000 through FY 2001, to remain available until expended.

Section 603. Lease-to-own. Provides for a sense of the Congress that residential tenancies under lease to own provisions can facilitate homeownership by low and moderate income families. Requires the Secretary to provide a report to Congress within 3 months after enactment of the act, analyzing whether lease to own provision can be incorporated within the HOME investment partnerships program, the public housing program, and other federally-assisted housing programs.

Section 604. Local capacity building. Amends Section 4 of Public Law 103-120 (the "HUD Demonstration Act"), to add the National Association of Housing Partnerships as an intermediary organization eligible for federal grants to develop the capacity and ability of community development corporations and community housing development organizations to undertake community development and affordable housing projects.

Section 605. Consolidated Application and Planning Requirement and Super NOFA. Establishes a statutory basis for consolidating several Notices of Funding Availability (NOFAs) for various HUD programs into one "SuperNOFA", thereby streamlining the process.

Section 701. Short Title and references. States that this title may be cited as the "Manufactured Housing Improvement Act."

Section 702. Findings and purposes. Current law provisions are replaced with a more positive, detailed statement of the original intent of Congress when it enacted the Federal Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards Act. Adds a consensus standards development process to the purpose of the Act. Expresses the continuing need to facilitate the availability of affordable manufactured homes as well as the need for objective, performance-based standards and enhanced consumer protection.

Section 703 - Definitions. Adds several definitions to Section 603 of current law concerning the consensus committee and the consensus standards development process set forth in Section 604 of this bill. Adds a definition for the monitoring function and related definitions for primary inspection agency and design approval primary inspection agency duties, which had not been previously defined. Consensus committee recommends specific regulations regarding these functions to the Secretary of HUD. The term "dealer" has been replaced throughout with the term "retailer."

Section 704. Federal manufactured home construction and safety standards. Section 604 of the existing manufactured housing regulation is revised to establish a "Consensus Committee" that would submit recommendations to the Secretary of HUD for developing, amending and revising both the Federal Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards and the enforcement regulations. Establishes requirements as to when recommendations made by the Consensus Committee to the Secretary are to be published by the Secretary in the Federal Register for public comment.

The members of the Consensus Committee will be appointed, subject to approval by the Secretary, by an administering organization, which shall be a recognized, voluntary, private consensus standards body with specific experience in developing model residential building codes. The committee shall be composed of 25 qualified individuals including general interest groups such as academicians, researchers, architects, and homebuilders.

The revisions to section 604 would also clarify the scope of federal preemption to ensure that disparate state or local requirements do not affect the uniformity and comprehensive nature of the federal standards. At the same time, the bill would reinforce the proposition that installation standards and regulations remain under the exclusive authority of each state.

Section 605 of existing law would be repealed, abolishing the National Manufactured Home Advisory Council, which is replaced by the consensus committee formed under Section 604.

Section 706. Public information. Amends current requirements governing cost information of any new standards submitted by manufacturers to the Secretary by requiring the Secretary to submit such cost information to the consensus committee for evaluation.

Sec. 707 Research, testing, development, and training. Requires HUD Secretary to conduct research, testing, development and training necessary to carry out the purposes of facilitating manufactured housing, including encouraging GSE’s to develop and implement secondary market securitization programs for FHA manufactured home loans, and reviewing the programs for FHA manufactured home loans and developing any changes to such programs to promote the affordability of manufactured homes.

Section 708. Fees. Amends current section 620 by allowing the Secretary to use industry label fees for current activities, conducting inspections and monitoring, providing funding to states for administration and implementation of approved state plans under existing section 623, hiring additional program staff, for additional travel funding, funding of a non-career administrator to oversee the program, and for the costs of administration of the consensus committee. Prohibits the use of label fees to fund any activity not expressly authorized by the act, makes expenditure of label fees subject to annual Congressional appropriations review, and eliminates HUD’s annual report requirement. Requires HUD to be accountable for any fee increase by requiring notice and comment rulemaking.

Section 709. Elimination of annual report requirement. Eliminates existing annual reporting by the Secretary to Congress on manufactured housing standards.

Section 710. Effective date. Effective date of the legislation is the date of enactment, except that interpretive bulletins or orders published as a proposed rule prior to the date of enactment shall be unaffected.

Section 711. Savings provision. Existing manufactured housing standards are maintained in effect until the effective date of the Federal manufactured home construction and safety standards pursuant to the amendments made by this act.

Section 801. Indian Lands Title Report Commission. Subject to amounts appropriated, creates an Indian Lands Title Report Commission to develop recommended approaches to improving how the Bureau of Indian Affairs conducts title reviews in connection with the sale of Indian lands. Receipt of a certificate from BIA is a prerequisite to any sales transaction on Indian lands, and the current procedure is overly burdensome and presents a regulatory barrier to increasing homeownership on Indian lands.

The Commission is composed of 12 members with knowledge of Indian land title issues (4 appointed by the President, 4 by the President from recommendations made by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, and 4 by President from recommendations made by the Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services). Authorized at $500,000.

Section 802. Loan guarantees for Indian housing. Permanently authorizes the Section 184 Loan Guarantee Program for Indian housing.

Section 901. Transfer of Unoccupied and Substandard HUD-Held Housing to Local Governments and Community Development Corporations. Amends Section 204 of the VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Act of 1997, which sets forth the authority of the HUD Secretary to engage in property disposition activities. Requires the HUD Secretary to transfer, to the maximum extent practicable, ownership of eligible properties (HUD-owned substandard multifamily, unoccupied multifamily, or unoccupied single-family properties) to a unit of local government having jurisdiction for the area where the property is located, or to a community development corporation within such jurisdiction, on certain terms and conditions. Eligible properties do not include any property subject to a specific sale agreement under section 204(h) of the National Housing Act, as amended by Section 602 of the FY 99 VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act. Requires the HUD Secretary to issue a report within 6 months of enactment of the Act identifying any communities designated as "revitalization communities" pursuant to section 204(h) of the National Housing Act, as amended.

Sec. 902. Technical Corrections to Title V of the VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act of 1997. Makes certain technical and clarifying corrections to the HUD Section 8 Portfolio Restructuring program established under Title V of the VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act of 1997.

Section 1001. Treatment of Adjustable Rate Mortgages. The amendment clarifies that, with respect to adjustable rate mortgage loans (ARMs), the amortization schedules upon which the cancellation and termination dates are determined should be prepared in accordance with the note as to the exact amortization schedule that the servicer should use in determining the cancellation. Conforms the term "primary residence." to mean "principal residence."

Section 1002. Treatment of Certain Modifications. In cases where there are workout agreements between a lender and its delinquent borrower(s) that modify the terms of the original note or mortgage, this provision would clarify that lenders have the option to reset the cancellation, termination and final termination dates to conform to the modified changes.

Section 1003. Residential Mortgages and Residential Mortgage Transactions. Changes clarify that "mortgage transaction" and "residential mortgage" terms apply only to loans consummated after the effective date.

Section 1004. Clarification of Status Balloon Mortgage Financing: For purposes of the "Homeowners Protection Act," this provision treats balloon payments as adjustable rate mortgages and as a result, will require amortization and termination schedules.

Section 1005. Disclosure Requirements. Clarifies annual notices to delete references to a one-time notice only required at closing. Provides clarification to allow use of standardized or uniform disclosure statements to meet requirements under Section 4.