Vice President Kamala Harris announced new federal funding aimed at building more housing to lower housing and rental costs.
According to a White House fact sheet provided to PoliticusUSA:
Recognizing that every community is different, the grants announced today are critical to breaking down local barriers that hinder housing development and reduce costs. Common housing barriers identified in PRO housing applications include high land and development costs, vacant land and underutilized properties, aging housing stock, inadequate infrastructure, relocation stress, risk of extreme weather or environmental hazards, and outdated land use and permitting policies and process.
Demand for these awards is high, with requests exceeding $13 for every $1 of available applications, from more than 175 communities in 47 states and territories, representing diverse demographics and geographies. The Biden-Harris administration will also release an additional $100 million in PRO housing funding later this summer.
The awards announced today build on the historic levels of funding provided by the Biden-Harris administration for housing, infrastructure and community resiliency. The President’s FY25 budget proposes historic investments of more than $258 billion in housing, including a $20 billion Housing Expansion Innovation Fund that will provide critical support to further remove barriers to housing, stimulate development and encourage innovative housing solutions .
HUD will award $85 million in grants through PRO Housing to 21 awardees. Winners span jurisdictions ranging from rural communities with fewer than 5,000 residents to urban counties with millions of people. In addition to grant funding, awardees will be invited to participate in technical assistance groups to facilitate peer learning and implementation support.
HUD will also provide technical assistance to communities applying for the first round of funding and other HUD grantees working to address housing barriers, emphasizing how to leverage annual appropriations and low-cost federal financing to adopt housing-forward strategies and increase housing supply.
Vice President Harris explains how grants will increase housing supply
Vice President Harris told PoliticusUSA during a call with reporters:
I’m proud to announce that we’re investing $85 million, and an additional $100 million later this summer, to help more than 20 cities remove these barriers. One obstacle is that affordable housing developers may have difficulty affording to purchase and develop land. To address this problem in Milwaukee, our investment will help the city provide subsidies to builders who develop vacant lots and abandoned buildings into affordable housing. Another barrier that often limits construction is the adequacy of infrastructure.
In Denver, for example, there is some land available but not yet connected to the grid. Through this investment, we will help Denver provide loans to developers for the electrical wiring and water pipes needed to build new homes. The investment is part of a larger strategy to lower rents and help more Americans afford homes. President Biden and I have proposed a national housing plan to build 2 million affordable homes. Our plan will also help millions of families afford their first home. We will provide a $25,000 down payment for those first-time, first-generation homebuyers, and we will provide $400 a month to millions of first-time homebuyers to help them pay off their mortgages. We continue to ask the United States Congress to pass our housing plan.
Biden and Harris take action to make housing more affordable
The housing affordability crisis didn’t start with the pandemic but has been going on for decades. The housing bubble burst under George W. Bush and led to the Great Recession. However, housing affordability began to decline in the 1960s, and the decline accelerated as wage growth failed to keep pace with housing price growth.
We’ve all heard presidents talk about the need for housing affordability for the past four decades or more, but the Biden administration has a comprehensive plan to build more housing, thereby creating more supply to alleviate demand.
What Biden and Harris are trying to do won’t solve the crisis in four years, but it’s the first serious plan to move beyond the mortgage bubble the country has created in a long time. But all of this progress will be lost if Democrats lose the White House in November.
