US Housing Bill Funds 2,100,000 Affordable (Not ‘Workforce’) Houses. Truth or Fiction?

photo of a homeless person's cardboard begging sign
Declare 'war' on unaffordable housing? Surely many homeless veterans won't be offended.

It’s the truth, actually.

It has just been proposed by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and will join the 115 other housing bills introduced over the last two years in this 115th US Congress.

Where will it join them? In the trash, of course. (Unless, as the 116th bill is introduced, it breaks some kind of numerical jinx and somehow sneaks into law.)

Read more about the recent affordable housing failures of Congress as it makes a few small efforts to lead the affordable crisis response at the national level. HOUSINGWIRE: Apartment List: Housing legislation can’t make it through Congress

Warren’s bill is, of course, the kind of ‘big government’ spending bill that is DOA (Dead On Arrival) in a Republican-controlled Congress. A reintroduced bill might well have little hope of success even if the Democrats win both houses in the November elections, because a Trump veto would be all but assured.

Nevertheless, Democrats are being pushed leftward by actions of the current Republican government, and social democracy is no longer such a dirty idea.

It’s worth having a look at Warren’s bill as a proposal reflecting a wartime leadership model. Should a war on unaffordable housing be declared any time in the near future (and it probably needs the be), the bill represents the outline of a serious government commitment to win that war. Regardless of how deeply flawed the bill is, either in reality or in the imagination of its opponents, it at very least represents a government facing a crisis and prepared to lead from the front, not the back.

Read more about Senator Warren’s bill in BISNOW: The American Housing And Economic Mobility Act Of 2018: A $470B Plan To Fix The Housing Crisis

 

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