The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services advanced legislation this week that seeks to streamline housing development and affordability.
The Housing for the 21st Century Act, H.R. 6644, seeks to update housing programs, remove regulatory roadblocks, and increase local flexibility.
The bipartisan bill was introduced by Rep. French Hill (R-AR), chairman of the committee, along with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), committee ranking member, and Reps. Mike Flood (R-NE), and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO).
“This housing affordability challenge affects everyone, from young people saving up to buy their first home, to middle class workers trying just to make the rent. In other words, housing costs have been too high across our country for the last several years, and the culprit is a lack of affordable housing supply,” Flood, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, said. “This bill, I think, is historic and bipartisan product that will get to the root of the housing affordability challenges our country has experienced for the last several years,”
Specifically, the bill would:
- Expand housing supply by modernizing and streamlining federal and local housing processes to reduce barriers to building homes.
- Improve federal housing programs through updated standards, better administration, and support for innovation in manufactured and factory-built housing.
- Strengthen local housing operations and community capacity to produce more affordable homes across both urban and rural areas.
- Enhance the usability of federal housing and community development programs to help communities more effectively address affordability challenges.
- Increase access to affordable homeownership by expanding financing pathways for manufactured homes and small-dollar mortgages.
- Improve coordination and oversight across federal housing agencies to boost program effectiveness.
- Increase clarity and consumer protections for homeowners, borrowers, and families navigating affordability pressures.
- Strengthen oversight to ensure housing providers and federal partners deliver safe, cost effective, and accountable services.
- Enhance protections for veterans and vulnerable households while ensuring federal programs support stable, affordable housing.
“Today, it costs roughly $100,000 before the shovel hits the dirt, and home builders cannot economically build a new home for, in many cases, less than $250,000,” Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA), chairman of the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said. “By eliminating duplicative reviews and fixing outdated programs, this legislation directly lowers those costs. This bill modernizes outdated housing laws by improving coordination between HUD and USDA programs and updating FHA multifamily loan limits so they reflect today’s construction costs. It also improves the usability of core community development programs like HOME and CDBG, enabling local governments to deploy resources to produce housing instead of getting caught up in the blue tape.”
The bill now moves to the full U.S. House for consideration.