While state lawmakers made a momentous $215 million investment in 2023 to incentivize housing development and homeownership, the Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency and legislative leaders hope slight program changes can speed up processes, spur participation by additional developers and push $40 million of unclaimed down payment assistance into the market.
Held Dec. 10 at OHFA headquarters, a listening session on proposed rule changes drew two hours of discussion from a dozen industry stakeholders, a sharp decrease from the 100-plus person turnout at a July 2023 event where hungry homebuilders eagerly awaited the implementation of Oklahoma’s new Housing Stability Program.
In December, however, attendees cited the crowd differential as evidence that 30-page applications, extensive documentation requirements and multi-month processing timelines have made the HSP’s Homebuilder Program (for single-family houses) and Increased Housing Program (for multifamily complexes) impractical for many builders despite the offer of interest-free financing.
“I am very shocked at this room,” said Lance Windel of LW Development. “Did they not show up because they’re defeated and they’re just throwing their hands in the air? Or did they not show up because they think the program is great? I am shocked that nobody showed up to this.”
Ann Felton Gilliland, CEO of the Central Oklahoma Habitat for Humanity, agreed with the concern.
“I think they’ve given up,” she said. “I was talking with somebody (who was) with [a major developer] a number of years ago, and he said the builders were saying it’s just too difficult.”
Andrea Frymire, CEO of Housing for Communities, encouraged OHFA staff to revise processes within the Housing Stability Program to shrink timelines, streamline applications and speed up approvals.
“[Home builders] are used to going down the street to their banker and getting approved and closing in 30 days, not a [long] application that takes four months to get approved,” Frymire said.
Darrell Beavers, OHFA’s housing development programs director, noted the cumbersome nature of government money, but he emphasized the agency’s obligation for due diligence.
“I hear all the time, ‘Well, my banker doesn’t require all of this stuff,’ and my response — sort of tongue in cheek — is, ‘Your banker is not dealing with taxpayer money like we are, and your banker is not giving you a zero-percent loan,’” Beavers said.
‘We do have a housing problem in the state of Oklahoma’
One the leaders of the Oklahoma Legislature who created OHFA’s Housing Stability Program is a community banker.
Recognizing that housing markets across America are oversubscribed and underserved, current Senate Appropriations and Budget Committee Chairman Chuck Hall worked with former House Appropriations and Budget Committee Chairman Kevin Wallace to step out on a political limb in 2023.
Guided by OHFA’s ideas and requests, Hall and Wallace (R-Wellston) convinced their legislative peers — and Gov. Kevin Stitt — to place $215 million into a pair of perpetual funds that would incentivize the development of so-called “workforce” housing in urban and rural areas, while also helping first-time homebuyers make their down payments.
“When we created the Oklahoma Housing Stability Program, I think it was a solid first-step for securing the long-term resource of workforce housing in the state of Oklahoma,” said Hall (R-Perry). “This is still a new program by all measures, so it really hasn’t run a complete, full cycle.”
By that, Hall means OHFA has yet to see the entire results of the Housing Stability Program’s process, which involves approving projects for zero-percent financing and then receiving repayments in full from builders after they sell the constructed homes or achieve 85 percent occupancy in the new apartment complexes.
“Excluding the $40 million of downpayment assistance in that program, $147 million of the $164 million for loans has been awarded, so that’s about 90 percent of the money that’s already out there,” Beavers explained Dec. 10. “So the program has been, by any account, extremely successful so far. Obviously, though, as loans are repaid, there will be more lendable money available.”
Corey Bornemann, OHFA’s housing development program manager, said the agency’s approval rate on developer applications has been “about 50 percent” over the last two years.
With stakeholders voicing various concerns Dec. 10 — gaps between application approval periods; slow title work from a contracted company; capped program participation in urban areas; strict completion thresholds for funds — OHFA executives and legislative leaders alike want to streamline the process while maintaining institutional integrity.
“If we start hearing things either from OHFA or from developers where we can make tweaks and changes to the program to spur better and easier utilization, I’m for that,” Hall said.
House Appropriations and Budget Committee Chairman Trey Caldwell agreed with his Senate counterpart and said the Oklahoma Legislature is “firmly committed to making this program work.”
“There are growing pains with any type of new project of this stature,” said Caldwell (R-Lawton). “At the end of the day, the Legislature recognizes that we do have a housing problem in the state of Oklahoma, and this is trying to solve the problem.”
Caldwell and Hall each noted the nuance that Beavers had stated: Government programs funded by public money require more guardrails than deals done strictly in the private sector.
“The three C’s of credit for any community banker are character, collateral and capacity, with character being one of the top benchmarks of that,” Hall said. “In community banking, we’re dealing with a consumer who we’ve had a long-standing and sometimes generational relationship with. So there is still a lot to be said for that relationship. In state government, it’s a process. These are taxpayer dollars. So I completely agree that we’ve got to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’ before we put that money out the door. But it shouldn’t stand in the way of deployment of the funds.”
Caldwell represents both urban and rural populations in his southwest Oklahoma district, and he noted that OHFA rules prescribe a 75 percent to 25 percent split favoring the deployment of Housing Stability Program dollars in rural communities.
“Both of them have housing problems, and what we see, especially in Frederick and Tillman County, is you have the availability of very nice, high-end homes. You know, that $500,000 or $600,000 home. And then you have also a lot of $20,000 shacks that are very dilapidated and are not necessarily livable by any kind of measurable standard, but there’s nothing in between,” Caldwell said. “And when something on that in between portion comes to market, it’s literally sold before it ever hits the market. And so the problem with that — and that this extremely rural area in Oklahoma has — is, how do you get a builder to go down there build?”
Caldwell said the City of Frederick owns dozens of lots and that local leaders would nearly “give the land away to a builder” if it would rejuvenate the 3,500-person community’s housing market.
“There’s 100 Fredericks across the state of Oklahoma,” Caldwell said. “So how can we work with these small, local communities when it comes to water access, utility hookups and the original land, and can we figure out a way to partner with this program where [someone] can go into a town like Frederick and build eight houses?”
While 40 different developers have seen an HP or IHP application approved so far, Caldwell acknowledged the complicated financial pressures of homebuilding and said Oklahoma’s Housing Stability Program will always need to adapt and be responsive to market realities.
“I do think that there are some legitimate, valid concerns about the ease of access of the program, but also safeguarding taxpayer money when we implement this program,” Caldwell said. “So I think the one thing I would like to see this upcoming legislative session is some tweaks that make the program more effective and more efficient.”
Urban, rural funding split receives attention
As lawmakers prepare to see their own shadows and begin their 2026 session on Groundhog Day, the OHFA Board of Trustees met Jan. 21 and approved a pair of adjusted applications for the Homebuilder Program (32 pages) and the Increased Housing Program (33 pages).
The board also approved a resolution removing a requirement that the $40 million of unused HSP down payment assistance funds be paired with an existing OHFA down payment program, a decision intended to get those dollars out the door as pending Homebuilder Program projects prepare to hit market.
In terms of the newly approved 2026 HP and IHP applications, however, many of the proposed changes that drew discussion Dec. 10 were left out of the final documents.
“The Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency conducted an exhaustive review process of the previous Housing Stability Program applications,” said Holley Mangham, OHFA’s communications manager. “As part of this process, some of the initially suggested changes did not make it into the final applications approved by the board of trustees.”
Changes that were approved in the 2026 Homebuilder Program application include:
- Increasing from 75 days to 90 days the potential extension OHFA staff can grant for applicants to close their loan within the required 180 days;
- Increasing from two to three the maximum number of Homebuilder Program awards for which an applicant can be eligible at one time, while establishing a maximum active total of four applications across both HP and IHP;
- Specification of the counties that qualify as “rural” for program purposes;
- Eliminating a requirement that applicants provide “a statement agreeing to adhere to the Oklahoma Uniform Building Code” and other government standards, although applicants still must follow such codes and standards;
- Requiring that a mandatory broker’s opinion about market conditions be dated within six months of an application as opposed to within one year;
- Requiring a minimum of 5 percent “contingency” to be written into development budgets;
- Asking applicants to explain why “a cost listed on the development budget is not expected to be incurred”;
- Prohibiting applicants from providing supplemental documentation to correct their application’s score after it has been submitted; and
- Adding an application “self score” sheet to improve understanding of the review process.
One of the many proposed changes that OHFA staff ultimately abandoned for 2026 would have required program participants to own the land for a proposed development prior to submitting their applications.
During the Dec. 10 OHFA session, Wendell noted the financial hurdles facing developers in urban areas where lots can cost $30,000 or more.
“Let’s do the math for this guy who is trying to get started,” Wendell said. “He’s on a $30,000 lot on a $200,000 build, and he’s got to have 5 percent down (…) So he’s got to have $30,000, plus 5 percent of $200,000 is $10,000 — doing math in public — he’s got to have $40,000 of a $200,000 build. That’s 20 percent down he’s got to have. That’s not where you were originally going. And he might be able to swing that for one (house), but he’s got to do five (under program rules). So now, for him to get in the game, he’s got to have $200,000 in cash — cash! And I’m telling you, there are a few of us — Habitat (for Humanity) — that can pull that off. But you’re limiting yourself to them and them only, and that’s on a five-house build. That’s a problem, right?”
With OHFA ultimately not making major changes for its 2026 program applications, industry eyes will lock into the Legislature to see what might happen this session.
In 2023, Wallace — then the House’s chairman of appropriations — said he was forced to trim $50 million from the program to appease Stitt and some senators who had hesitancy about creating a housing program. At the time, Wallace said he believed more funding would eventually be added into the Housing Stability Program, but the Lincoln County legislator lost his 2024 reelection bid.
As 2026 begins, OHFA officials say more than 90 percent of development funding has been allocated for projects around the state, but housing demand remains high. Caldwell now holds the chairmanship Wallace did, and he wants to see the Housing Stability Program succeed.
“I think Oklahoma is leading the way when it comes to this, and anytime you’re the first through the door, sometimes there’s going to be hiccups. There’s going to be problems along the way that we have to address and fix,” Caldwell said. “[OHFA is] still listening to the builders and the people that actually use the program, and to my knowledge, they’re willing to work with them. I think whether that requires administrative rule changes, or if it needs legislative statutory changes, I think we can do little tweaks here and there to get the full potential of this program really going.”
OHFA’s executive director, Deborah Jenkins, said the agency is “always looking for great suggestions.”
“The program is doing very well. We are moving forward and awarding applications at almost every meeting, and we’re excited to continue to work on it,” Jenkins said after the Jan. 21 board meeting. “I think there are quite a few builders that are using the program. There may be a handful that have completed the projects, but I think on the [Homebuilder Program] side of it, we’ve awarded about 98 percent of the funds.”
While the Housing Stability Program’s statutes require the funding of “both urban and rural” developments, an OHFA administrative rule — Title 330, Chapter 80-3-3 — established that 75 percent of awards must be “for proposed developments located in non-metropolitan statistical areas or rural areas as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
Jenkins and legislative leaders said they have heard concerns about urban areas not being eligible for enough of the funds.
“We have been contacted by developers, and that request has been made,” Jenkins said. “We have shared that with our legislators.”
Hall said he wants all parties to “continue to have an eye on that” topic.
“I know that Oklahoma County and Tulsa County could pull down some more of that,” Hall said. “They could create more housing inventory if we allowed them to tap into more than the 25 percent they currently have. I think it’s worthy of evaluation. But again, one of the major intents was to incentivize developers to go into rural Oklahoma and have the same kind of profit margins they would have gotten in the metropolitan areas.”
Jenkins said OHFA staff would “support whatever the Legislature chooses to do with this program.” Hall said his goal is simple.
“What I’m interested in is the money to be deployed into housing. We need the housing in Oklahoma,” Hall said. “We need the inventories to come up. We need to give Oklahomans the American dream to own their own home. There’s stability in that, which is the name of the act itself.”
Housing Stability Program awards EOY 2025
