Lawmakers touted this as a major step towards solving the housing affordability crisis.
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america today
WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives on June 23 passed a bipartisan bill aimed at alleviating the growing housing crisis by streamlining building regulations, fostering local innovation, and restricting investors from purchasing homes.
The bill was a major priority for both Republicans and Democrats heading into this fall’s midterm elections, and ultimately passed by an overwhelming vote of 358-32. The vote comes a day after the Senate passed the bill 85-5. The bill will now go to President Donald Trump’s desk, where he is expected to sign it.
The bill gained broad support in an election year after breaking deadlocks in the White House and the House, but both parties are increasingly aware that voters say they are fed up with the high cost of living.
twenty onecent The Century Road to Housing Act was more than a year in the making and spurred a national discussion about why housing is so unaffordable and what can be done to fix it.
“This is a very significant bill,” said Dennis Shea, executive vice president of the Terwilliger Housing Policy Center, a bipartisan policy center. “This shows that members of both parties are working together to address housing affordability challenges. They are hearing from their constituents that rising housing costs are a real problem.”
The bill was sponsored primarily in Congress by Representative French Hill (R-Arkansas). Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina).
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Hill characterized it as “one of the most important bipartisan housing reforms in recent memory.”
In his speech, he called the bill an example of “Congress doing what it does best to address the challenges of the American people, offer solutions, and pass them into law.”
Waters, the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, said this is a “first step” in addressing the nation’s affordable housing crisis.
“This bill speaks to the real change that voters have been demanding,” she said.
Why is there a housing crisis in America?
There are many reasons for the housing shortage, but one of the most important is the sharp drop in development after the 2008 financial crisis. New home construction fell and remained sluggish for more than a decade. Economists currently believe the United States is millions of homes short.
With supply so low, prices have soared, putting both renting and buying a home out of reach for many Americans. The median price of existing homes sold in May was $429,300, up 52% from just before the pandemic, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Meanwhile, more Americans are feeling the pinch as housing continues to be unaffordable. A quarter of all owners and half of all renters are “cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than a third of their income on housing. The number of people living with family and friends is also increasing, with a report released in early June showing a sharp decline in household formation since the pandemic.
What’s included in the housing bill that just passed Congress?
Because the crisis is so deeply entrenched in the economy, housing experts believe it needs to be tackled on multiple fronts.
Shea believes one of the key elements of the bill is changes to federal regulations for manufactured housing that will streamline the construction of homes. Factory-built homes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars less than site-built homes.
The law also seeks to limit home purchases by large investors (those who own at least 350 properties). While the idea has wide support from lawmakers, most housing experts disagree that such measures are necessary.
The bill “doesn’t solve the affordability challenge,” Shea told USA TODAY. “It’s going to take action in collaboration with the state, local level and the private sector. But it’s very meaningful.”
