Carol Warren, MGAP VP Collegiate Relations, is Pi Beta Phi’s NPC Delegate and has been heavily involved in lobbying members of Congress to support “The Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act (H.R. 1548/S.713) Preserving the Future of Not-for-Profit Student Housing.”
Material will be sent to house corporation presidents in the next week, which will include sample letters to send to Senators and Congressmen in support of these bills. What follows is some of the material that will be sent.
The current tax code hinders modernization and safety of some student housing. The federal income tax code allows colleges and universities to use tax deductible contributions for infrastructure improvements to classrooms, laboratories, dormitories, meeting areas and dining facilities, but forbids contributions to fraternity and sorority foundations to be used to make similar infrastructure improvements to student housing, meeting areas and dining facilities.
Fraternities and sororities are the nation’s largest not-for-profit student landlord. We own and manage $3 billion in student housing at no cost to the American taxpayers. We house 250,000 students a year in 8,000 facilities with a replacement cost and capacity that universities cannot afford to bear. Our houses operate almost exclusively on student rents and we do not have the ability to raise tax-deductible funding for important life-safety capital improvements.
In the 108th Congress, the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act was included in the Charitable Giving Act of 2003 that passed the House by a 408-13 margin. The 2005 version of the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act is the same as the language within the Charitable Giving Act of 2003 that passed the House in the last Congress.
Passing the Collegiate House and Infrastructure Act would encourage new charitable contributions to improve current collegiate housing, thereby preserving and upgrading existing housing capacity and helping construct the new housing capacity needed to accommodate rapidly growing student populations.
The result would be safer student housing by enabling fraternities and sororities to fund the installation of modern life safety equipment such as fire sprinklers, smoke detectors and alarm systems.
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