CUNA looks forward to working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director on credit union priorities and encourages FHFA to use CUNA as a resource. FHFA Acting Director Sandra Thompson was nominated to become director and testified before the Senate Housing, Banking and Urban Affairs Committee Thursday.

“CUNA strongly supports the FHFA’s mission of ensuring that the GSEs fulfill their statutory missions to support affordable housing, community development, and diversity and inclusion,” reads CUNA's letter for the hearing's record. “CUNA supports placing the FHFA’s mission objectives as equal to those related to ending the conservatorship, and we trust that Acting Director Thompson’s experience in the FHFA’s Division of Housing and Mission Goals will bring a renewed mission focus at the Agency.”

CUNA also recommends FHFA:

• Work with credit unions to fulfill Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s statutory mission to support affordable housing, community development, and diversity and inclusion.
• Address reports of racial discrimination by appraisers through assessing and modernizing appraiser practices and improving the number and diversity of appraisers.
• Take actions to further allow the Federal Home Loan Banks to meet to provide reliable liquidity to its member institutions to support housing finance and community investment.
• Eventually make a responsible exit from government conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, without sacrificing equitable access and pricing to the secondary market for lenders of all sizes and charter types.