Last week, the House Financial Services Committee released a new version of the housing bill, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. This critically needed legislation makes a substantial down payment on efforts to address the housing affordability crisis affecting communities nationwide. Our hope is that the House of Representatives will swiftly pass the amended bill and work with the Senate to send it to the President without delay. But it won’t be easy. Most of us in Washington have forgotten how to work together, though we are working on it.
The new House bill takes a targeted and bipartisan approach to limiting institutional investors’ ability to outcompete prospective homeowners, while increasing investment in much-needed rental housing by for-profit and nonprofit investors, developers, and home builders. This bill would not be possible but for the leadership of House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-Ark.) and Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), along with Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Without their leadership, housing might still be a back-burner issue in Congress.
Getting this bill passed and enacted into law won’t magically solve the housing affordability crisis. But it will make a material difference and lay a foundation on which we can continue to build. To pass the bill, we must knit together two overlapping pieces of legislation, each of which passed with historic bipartisan margins in the House and the Senate.
Dozens of housing organizations have already signed NHC’s letter in support of the new bill. If your organization wants to sign the letter, send me an email by 1 pm ET on Monday, May 18 and we will add it to our letter.
Unfortunately, the two chambers have been at odds on how to proceed. As I wrote last month, friction between the House and Senate is as old as the Republic itself. That’s why there is a better way to address differences between them – a conference meeting to reconcile their differences face to face. House Financial Services Housing and Insurance Subcommittee Chairman Mike Flood (R-Neb.) made this point at POLITICO’s Economy Summit in March. “If we could get [the leaders of the two committees] in the room, around a table, we could navigate these issues, and that’s what I’m an advocate for.” He’s right.
Our nation’s housing shortage did not arise overnight, and there is no single solution. The amended 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act represents an important step forward. By modernizing outdated housing programs, reducing unnecessary barriers to development, and increasing flexibility for local communities, the bill helps create the conditions needed to build and preserve more affordable homes across the country. It also appropriately emphasizes transparency, consumer protections, and accountability.
The House bill incorporates numerous provisions that have previously passed the Senate with bipartisan support. These include housing counseling reforms; incentives to build housing in Opportunity Zones; a pilot program for home repair and rehabilitation assistance; an increase in the public welfare investment cap; expansion of eligible Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) activities to include new construction of affordable housing; environmental review streamlining; an increase in the FHA multifamily loan limits; modernization of the definition of manufactured housing; reforms to USDA rural housing programs; and improvements to both the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program and the HOME Investment Partnerships Program.
The bill also addresses the controversial issue of investment in single-family rental properties by large institutional investors. The Senate’s effort to address this issue garnered strong opposition because it also sought to make it impossible for institutional investors to build single-family rental properties, a much-needed component of multifamily rental housing. The House bill is consistent with President Trump’s January 20, 2026, Executive Order, “Stopping Wall Street From Competing With Main Street Homebuyers,” which states that “large institutional investors should not buy single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by families,” while allowing “appropriate, narrowly tailored exceptions for build-to-rent properties that are planned, permitted, financed, and constructed as rental communities.”
In addition, the House bill includes important new provisions not included in the Senate version, such as a requirement that HUD issue unified guidance and best practices on single-stair residential buildings, and an FHA small-dollar mortgage pilot, among others.
No single piece of legislation is perfect, and many of us continue to support additional measures, including the PRICE Act, funding for the CDBG Disaster Recovery program, and reform and extension of the Rental Assistance Demonstration program. Should the bill proceed to conference, we will continue to advocate for these priorities. However, it is essential that we do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This bill represents the strongest bipartisan housing legislation considered in a generation. Whatever bill emerges from conference, we will support it.
Every community is affected by the housing affordability crisis, regardless of politics or geography. NHC’s report, “Priced Out: When a Good Job Isn’t Enough,” finds that middle-class Americans now face affordability challenges once associated primarily with low-income households. Today, the median U.S. household income is sufficient to purchase a home in only 128 metropolitan areas, down from 287 in 2019—an alarming contraction that underscores how quickly the American Dream of homeownership is slipping out of reach.
Without significant policy action to expand supply and stabilize costs, affordability pressures will continue to intensify, displacing workers and constraining economic opportunity. It will also be a major factor in the midterm elections, as recent polling makes clear. If President Donald Trump and Members of Congress don’t do something really tangible, the results will show it. It’s a fundamental law of politics: the economy always wins.