Collegiate Housing Act

The Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act would allow tax-deductible charitable contributions given to educational foundations (such as the national educational foundations for fraternities and sororities) to be used to make improvements to housing owned and operated for the benefit of college students. This bill would make it substantially easier for Greeks nationwide to raise the money needed to install critical life-safety improvements in our chapter housing, expand housing capacity, and otherwise modernize the housing we provide to our student members.

An earlier version of the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act passed the House of Representatives in 2003 as part of a larger bill, but it failed to pass the Senate for political reasons beyond our control. When Congress ended its work in 2006, we had 151 House sponsors and 28 Senate sponsors, but we have to start all over again in 2007.

Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) introduced H.R. 128 on January 23, 2007, designed to decrease fire emergencies at colleges and universities. Under the bill, the Secretary of Education would award grants for sprinkler systems or other fire suppression or prevention techniques. The grants would be available to states, public and private colleges or universities, fraternities, and sororities for use in student housing dormitories. However, to receive the grants, the recipient would have to provide matching funds for the fire safety project. The bill would provide $100 million in grant money each year from 2008 to 2011. H.R. 642 has been referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.