June may be National Housing Month, but July could well earn the title of National Bipartisanship Month—at least in the realm of housing legislation. In a remarkable show of consensus, senators from both sides of the aisle advanced the most ambitious federal effort in decades to address America’s housing affordability crisis.
The last comparable moment of bipartisan action was July 2008, when Congress passed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) during the financial crisis. HERA led to the conservatorship, preservation, and stabilization of the housing markets over the following ten years. This year’s host of bipartisan bills could have a similar impact on the availability of affordable housing over the next ten years.
The list of victories is long and well worth cataloguing and celebrating. They include the expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit on July 4, bipartisan support for critical housing programs in the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 24, repudiating massive cuts proposed in the President’s budget, as well as the unanimous vote on July 29 when the Senate Banking Committee voted 24-0 to advance the bipartisan Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act of 2025.
Co-authored by Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the ROAD to Housing Act consolidates nearly 30 bipartisan stand-alone bills designed to increase housing supply, improve affordability, and modernize federal programs. That’s right. Senators Scott and Warren. Not two names you would typically think of as cosponsors of legislation. Until now. As Chairman Scott said, “I have found her to be consistently not where I am on any of the issues, but on housing, we found ourselves in the same place,” The Washington Post reported. Senator Warren agreed, adding “We agreed we need more housing and we need less red tape, and those two are intertwined.” Senator Warren provided a perfect description of what bipartisan compromise looks like when she described working with Senator John Kennedy (R-La.), calling it “always an adventure…He was very clear about what he thought was a good idea and what he thought was a bad idea, and every once in a while, he was open to changing his mind on what ideas fit in which category.”
NHC has been a vocal supporter of the legislation. The package incorporates key elements from a host of earlier proposals, including:
- HOME Investment Partnerships Reauthorization and Improvement Act — ensuring the HOME program is permanently authorized, adding flexibility, and streamlining administration.
- Reforming Disaster Recovery Act — permanently authorizing HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding, streamlining the federal response to disasters.
- Rural Housing Service Reform Act — preserving affordable housing in rural communities and enhancing support for prospective homeowners in these areas.
- PRICE Act – authorizes HUD’s Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement (PRICE) program to provide grants to communities to maintain, protect, and stabilize manufactured housing and manufactured housing communities.
- Build Now Act — rewarding cities and states that increase housing construction and reduce regulatory barriers.
- Reducing Homelessness Through Program Reform Act — strengthening HUD’s homelessness programs and Housing Choice Voucher initiatives.
- Build More Housing Near Transit Act – provides an optional increased rating in the Federal Transit Authority’s evaluation process for projects in areas that establish pro-housing policy near public transportation routes.
- Housing Supply Frameworks Act – directs HUD to develop best practice frameworks for zoning and land-use policies, helping communities identify and overcome barriers to housing development.
- Property Improvement and Manufactured Housing Loan Modernization Act – updates mortgage lending standards for manufactured housing through the FHA and expands access to financing for housing. It also directs HUD to study the cost-effectiveness and long-term value of supporting factory-built housing finance options to address the nation’s housing shortages.
These reforms provide communities with desperately needed resources and incentives to add new homes, lower costs, and improve urban, suburban, and rural housing outcomes. The bill’s reach—from program modernization to regulatory simplifications and increased nonprofit participation—makes it, as the Bipartisan Policy Center noted, “the most impactful and comprehensive piece of housing legislation since the Great Recession”.
The housing affordability crisis has impacted every community in America, regardless of politics or geography. It requires urgent, bipartisan, comprehensive action. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, often the front line in the fight for affordable housing, pledged to work with Congress to move the ROAD to Housing Act across the finish line. Industry and stakeholder groups echoed this support, including NHC members like the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition, National Apartment Association, American Bankers Association, Enterprise, Habitat for Humanity International, Low Income Investment Fund, National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, National Association of REALTORS®, National Association of Home Builders, and the National Multifamily Housing Council. They have recognized the many ways the bill addresses issues like rising costs, rural housing, regulatory barriers, homelessness, the need to incentivize small dollar mortgages, and modernize outdated oversight mechanisms.
As I wrote earlier this month, Congress passed and the President signed H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. While the broader bill was highly partisan, the housing provisions included in the bill were enormously important to housing, and included legislation with broad bipartisan support, including an expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), reinstatement of the mortgage insurance premium deduction, an expanded and permanent Opportunity Zones incentive, and permanent extension of the New Markets Tax Credit.
LIHTC remains the nation’s most effective tool for building and preserving affordable rental housing. This legislation delivers a significant expansion of the credit by incorporating key elements of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, aimed at boosting the supply of rental homes across urban, rural, and tribal communities. It establishes a permanent 12% increase in the allocation for the 9% Housing Credit and reduces the bond financing threshold from 50% to 25%. Together, these changes are expected to produce or preserve more than one million additional affordable rental homes between 2026 and 2035. The impact of the Housing Credit can be broadened even further if the Federal Housing Finance Agency increases the maximum investment in LIHTC allowed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, by a vote of 27-1, approved the FY 2026 Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) spending bill. The bill includes $73.3 billion for HUD, including vital funding for housing programs that were eliminated or had their funding significantly reduced in the House bill. The Senate restored funding for the HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) Program and increases funding for federal rental assistance and NeighborWorks® America, as compared to the Presidential budget request and the House THUD bill.
A great committee markup is not signed legislation, and the House version of the bill represents deep cuts in critically important programs. The Senate is in a strong position, however. If the House refuses to adopt the Senate bill and the Senate insists on its bipartisan bill, the only other option is a continuing resolution, which would extend the 2025 levels agreed to during the Biden administration, which are even higher than the Senate bill in most cases.
As I outlined in my recent blog post and letters to the Senate THUD Subcommittee leadership, HOME is our only federal block grant program dedicated solely to housing. It empowers local governments with the resources and flexibility to craft innovative, community-specific solutions—whether building and preserving affordable rental homes, helping families achieve homeownership with down payment assistance, or providing tenant-based rental support. It’s also a vital source of gap financing for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects, and any future growth in the Housing Credit depends on sustaining HOME.
Legislation to empower states and communities to reduce homelessness was introduced by Senators Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.). The Housing Accountability and Homeownership Improvement Act would require recipients of HUD Continuum of Care grants to track housing outcomes, increase transparency, and prioritize cost-effective, evidence-based practices. The legislation is designed to give states and communities greater flexibility to address homelessness while improving federal oversight of how funding is used. It also includes provisions to streamline regulations and promote homeownership through reforms to existing housing programs.
Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), co-chairs of the Senate Community Development Finance Caucus, led a bipartisan group of Senators in a letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, urging swift action to disburse congressionally-appropriated funding from the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. CDFIs are vital engines of economic growth and financial inclusion throughout the country, leveraging federal investment to provide loans, capital and financial services in areas that are often overlooked by traditional financial institutions. “Since its inception over three decades ago, the CDFI Fund has proven critical to the CDFI sector’s success and has met the mission to create a public-private partnership to promote access to capital in our most underserved rural and urban communities,” wrote the bipartisan group of 26 senators. “To date, the CDFI Fund has yet to announce and disburse awards for five programs within its portfolio even though application periods closed months ago. Furthermore, other programs have yet to publish applications for the current fiscal year. The uncertainty around the deployment of federal funds from the CDFI Fund is concerning but can be addressed expeditiously.” The letter requested that OMB provide a spending plan outlining the timelines for the obligation of all discretionary funds.
In the House Financial Services Committee, the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee held a hearing on July 16, exploring proposals to modernize the HOME program. Chairman Mike Flood (R-Neb.) and Emmanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), in April, kicked off a bipartisan public input process to develop legislation to improve the HOME and Community Development Block Grant programs. NHC and many of our members have contributed to this effort.
Bipartisanship is also the foundation of new approaches, like the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act (NHIA). Former HUD Secretaries Henry Cisneros (D) and Ben Carson (R) published an op-ed in The Washington Post urging Congress to enact the NHIA. They highlighted the nation’s shortage of 4.5 million homes, lagging construction, soaring costs, and regulatory barriers jointly stifling access to homeownership. The NHIA would establish the Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit, a program modeled after the successful Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, aimed at closing the gap between renovation costs and sales prices in underinvested communities. “In many low-income areas, it costs more to build or fix up a home than the home can sell for,” they wrote. “That’s known as the ‘value gap,’ and it’s why private developers often walk away from affordable housing projects — the math just doesn’t work.”
Secretaries Cisneros and Carson, despite their political differences, agreed: “The significant disparity in homeownership across the United States requires immediate bipartisan intervention.” Their call for the NHIA’s inclusion in any major housing or tax package reflects a growing, cross-ideological recognition that only robust bipartisan action can expand homeownership and revitalize struggling neighborhoods.
NHIA was introduced earlier this year by Warner and Todd Young (R-Ind.) in the Senate and Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and John Larson (D-Conn.) in the House of Representatives. It should be given freestanding markup in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees and amended to must-pass legislation this year.
To advance the progress we have made, it is essential that our members throughout the country reinforce the tangible value of the programs we utilize during the congressional recess. Senators and Members of Congress want to know that they can have a positive impact on the affordability crisis. We should also never miss an opportunity to say thank you, especially to Republican Senators (listed below) who unanimously stood up for housing in the Appropriations Committee. As I said in my July 13 Member Note, time is not on our side, but it is available for us if we use it.
It’s easy to be pessimistic about politics and partisanship in Washington and throughout the country. However, when it comes to housing, there is a meaningful and growing trend that is focused on bipartisan solutions. July may mark the beginning of real change—not only in addressing the housing affordability crisis, but as a blueprint for our broader national agenda.
Republican Senators voting Yes on the FY 2026
Susan Collins, Chair (Maine)
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
Jerry Moran (Kansas)
John Hoeven (North Dakota)
John Boozman (Arkansas)
Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia)
John Kennedy (Louisiana)
Cindy Hyde-Smith (Mississippi)
Bill Hagerty (Tennessee)
Katie Britt (Alabama)
Markwayne Mullin (Oklahoma)
Deb Fischer (Nebraska)
Mike Rounds (South Dakota)