House lawmakers on Tuesday sent President Donald Trump a sweeping housing package to be signed into law. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a sweeping bipartisan housing package that seeks to lower housing costs and expand homeownership access, sending the legislation to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.
The House voted 358-32 in favor of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act on Tuesday night, with 41 lawmakers not voting.
On Monday, the Senate passed the bill in a similarly overwhelming 85-5 outcome.
“This bill speaks to the real change that our constituents have been demanding, where everyone can afford a dignified place to call home, where tenants are protected and where working Americans can finally get ahead,” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services, said from the House floor on Tuesday.
The vote follows months of haggling over the bill’s content by the House and Senate and Democrats and Republicans. In the end, the sweeping bill includes more than 60 pieces of legislation, 36 of which were sponsored by bipartisan lawmakers, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The bill aims to increase housing supply while lowering costs, limiting corporate and institutional ownership for rental purposes and expanding financing for lower-income individuals.
Provisions target bureaucracy to hasten development while seeking to modernize federal housing programs and banking regulations to expand local lending and offer incentives to local governments that prioritize more housing.
Habitat for Humanity, the global nonprofit aimed at helping families build homes, applauded the legislation’s passage on Tuesday, saying it “will bring homeownership within reach for more Americans by tackling longstanding barriers in the housing system.”
“With the passage of this major legislative package, Congress has demonstrated strong, bipartisan leadership by coming to an agreement and taking a critical step in addressing the nation’s housing affordability challenge,” Jonathan Reckford, chief executive officer at Habitat for Humanity International, said in a statement.
The steeply divided Congress came together to pass legislation as the United States faces what some have called a housing affordability crisis.
The United States is facing a housing shortage that is disproportionately affecting lower-income individuals.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the United States is experiencing a shortage of 7.2 million affordable units for low-income renters, with only 35 such rental homes in existence for every 100 low-income renter households.
The nonprofit said extremely low-income renters face the shortage in every state.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., described the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act as “transformational legislation” that will “help the housing affordability problem, reduce regulations so builders can build, limit institutional investing in the housing market and bring the American Dream back into reach for millions of young and working families.”
“Congress is paving a path back to homeownership for American families who have been locked out for far too long,” he said in a social media statement Tuesday night.
