(a) Continuance of work of Urban Reinvestment Task Force regarding neighborhood housing services programs and preservation projects
(1) The corporation shall continue the work of the Urban Reinvestment Task Force in establishing neighborhood housing services programs in neighborhoods throughout the United States, monitoring their progress, and providing them with grants and technical assistance. For the purpose of this paragraph, a neighborhood housing services program may involve a partnership of neighborhood residents and representatives of local governmental and financial institutions, organized as a State-chartered non-profit corporation, working to bring about reinvestment in one or more neighborhoods through a program of systematic housing inspections, increased public investment, increased private lending, increased resident investment, and a revolving loan fund to make loans available at flexible rates and terms to homeowners not meeting private lending criteria.
(2) The corporation shall continue the work of the Urban Reinvestment Task Force in identifying, monitoring, evaluating, and providing grants and technical assistance to selected neighborhood preservation projects which show promise as mechanisms for reversing neighborhood decline and improving the quality of neighborhood life.
(3) The corporation shall experimentally replicate neighborhood preservation projects which have demonstrated success, and after creating reliable developmental processes, bring the new programs to neighborhoods throughout the United States which in the judgment of the corporation can benefit therefrom, by providing assistance in organizing programs, providing grants in partial support of program costs, and providing technical assistance to ongoing programs.
(4) The corporation shall continue the work of the Urban Reinvestment Task Force in supporting Neighborhood Housing Services of America, a nonprofit corporation established to provide services to local neighborhood housing services programs, with support which may include technical assistance and grants to expand its national loan purchase pool and may contract with it for services which it can perform more efficiently or effectively than the corporation.
(5) The corporation shall, in making and providing the foregoing grants and technical and other assistance, determine the reporting and management restrictions or requirements with which the recipients of such grants or other assistance must comply. In making such determinations, the corporation shall assure that recipients of grants and other assistance make available to the corporation such information as may be necessary to determine compliance with applicable Federal laws.
(b) General administrative powers
To carry out the foregoing purposes and engage in the foregoing activities, the corporation is authorized—
(1) to adopt, alter, and use a corporate seal;
(2) to have succession until dissolved by Act of Congress;
(3) to make and perform contracts, agreements, and commitments;
(4) to sue and be sued, complain and defend, in any State, Federal, or other court;
(5) to determine its necessary expenditures and the manner in which the same shall be incurred, allowed, and paid, and appoint, employ, and fix and provide for the compensation of consultants, without regard to any other law, except as provided in section
8107(d) of this title;
(6) to settle, adjust, and compromise, and with or without compensation or benefit to the corporation to release or waive in whole or in part, in advance or otherwise, any claim, demand, or right of, by, or against the corporation;
(7) to invest such funds of the corporation in such investments as the board of directors may prescribe;
(8) to acquire, take, hold, and own, and to deal with and dispose of any property; and
(9) to exercise all other powers that are necessary and proper to carry out the purposes of this subchapter.
(c) Contracting powers
(1) The corporation may contract with the Office of Neighborhood Reinvestment of the Federal home loan banks for all staff, services, facilities, and equipment now or in the future furnished by the Office of Neighborhood Reinvestment to the Urban Reinvestment Task Force, including receiving the services of the Director of the Office of Neighborhood Reinvestment as the corporation's executive director.
(2) The corporation shall have the power to award contracts and grants to—
(A) neighborhood housing services corporations and other nonprofit corporations engaged in neighborhood preservation activities; and
(B) local governmental bodies.
(3) The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Federal home loan banks, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve banks, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Comptroller of the Currency, the National Credit Union Administration or any other department, agency, or other instrumentality of the Federal Government are authorized to provide funds, services and facilities, with or without reimbursement, necessary to achieve the objectives and to carry out the purposes of this subchapter.
(d) Non-profit nature of corporation
(1) The corporation shall have no power to issue any shares of stocks, or to declare or pay any dividends.
(2) No part of the income or assets of the corporation shall inure to the benefit of any director, officer, or employee, except as reasonable compensation for services or reimbursement for expenses.
(3) The corporation may not contribute to or otherwise support any political party or candidate for elective public office.