Congress Passes Bipartisan Housing Bill as Cost of Living Surges

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill June 23 that seeks to alleviate a growing housing crisis by streamlining construction regulations, encouraging local innovation and limiting investor purchases of homes, among other steps.

The legislation – a major priority for both Republicans and Democrats ahead of this fall’s midterm elections – passed overwhelmingly, with a final tally of 358-32. The vote comes a day after the Senate passed the bill 85-5. It will go to President Donald Trump’s desk, where he is expected to sign it.

After clearing logjams in the White House and House of Representatives, the legislation drew broad support in an election year in which both parties are increasingly aware that voters have said they’re fed up with the high cost of living.

The 21st Century Road to Housing Act has been over a year in the making and has encouraged a national discussion of why housing is so unaffordable – and what can be done to fix it.

“It’s a highly consequential piece of legislation,” said Dennis Shea, the executive vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy. “It demonstrates that members of both parties are working together to tackle the housing affordability challenge. They’re hearing from their constituents that rising housing costs are a real problem.”

The bill was largely championed in Congress by Rep. French Hill, R-Arkansas; Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts; and Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina.

Hill, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, characterized it “one of the most significant bipartisan housing reforms in recent memory.”

In a speech, he called the legislation an example of “Congress working at its best, tackling the challenges of the American people, offering solutions and having those enacted into law.”

Waters, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, said it was a “first step” toward addressing the nation’s affordable housing crisis.

“This bill speaks to the real change that our constituents have been demanding,” she said.

Why Is There a Housing Crisis in America?

There are numerous reasons for the housing shortage, but one of the most important is the sharp decline in development after the financial crisis of 2008. New-home construction tumbled, then stayed depressed for over a decade. Economists now reckon the U.S. has a housing shortage in the millions of units.

With so little supply, prices are surging, keeping housing both for rent and for purchase out of reach of many Americans. The median price of a previously owned home sold in May was $429,300, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s up a whopping 52% from just before the pandemic.

As housing remains out of reach, meanwhile, more Americans are feeling the pinch. One-quarter of all owners and half of all renters are “cost-burdened,” meaning they pay more than one-third of their income for housing. The number of people living with family or friends is also increasing: Household formation has fallen sharply since the pandemic, according to a report released earlier in June.

What Is in the Housing Bill That Just Passed Congress?

With the crisis so deeply entrenched in the economy, housing observers believe it needs to be tackled on a variety of fronts.

Shea thinks one of the bill’s key components is a change to federal regulations of manufactured housing that would streamline construction of such houses. Factory-built homes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars less than those built on the property site.

The legislation also seeks to limit large investors – those with at least 350 properties – from buying homes. That idea has broad support from lawmakers, although most housing experts disagree that such a step is needed.

The bill “is not going to solve the affordability challenge,” Shea told USA TODAY. “That will take action at the state and local level and with the private sector. But it is very meaningful.”

Reporting by Andrea Riquier and Zachary Schermele, USA TODAY / USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect