A bill that extends the Colorado state low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program through 2019 has passed both the House and Senate. The legislation now heads to Gov. John Hickenlooper.

HB 1465 extends the state LIHTC program and authorizes the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority to allocate $5 million in state LIHTCs annually in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Without passage of HB 1465, the state LIHTC program would have sunset at the end of this calendar year.

Colorado’s state LIHTC program was recently renewed in 2014. Housing leaders say that in only one year the credit has been successful in:

  • Directly supporting the development of 1,902 new affordable rental housing units;
  • Leveraging $185 million in private-sector investment into Colorado;
  • Helping CHFA support 282 permanent supportive homeless housing units, the most in any single year of the organization’s history; and
  • Enabling CHFA to double the number of affordable rental housing units supported last year using either state and/or federal LIHTCs.