Newly proposed legislation aims to tackle the nation’s housing supply shortfall — including affordable senior housing — by building and preserving up to 1.3 million homes to create a pipeline of sustainable, economical living arrangements.
Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), chair of the Senate Housing, Transportation and Community Development Subcommittee, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced the Homes Act on Wednesday.
The sponsors said that the legislation offers a public option for housing to meet the needs of people and communities not being served by the private market. The bill would establish a national Housing Development Authority to acquire and develop real estate to create and maintain a stock of permanent, sustainable, affordable housing.
LeadingAge officials said that their affordable housing policy team participated in a policy summit hosted last week by the Center for American Program.
The housing authority would function as a public bank and developer, working directly with state, local and tribal governmental agencies, nonprofits, community land trusts and public housing authorities to build, rehabilitate and maintain sustainable, permanently affordable homes. The bill would require 40% of units be set aside for extremely low-income households, and 30% would be devoted to low-income households.
The program would be funded by $30 billion in annual appropriations, combined with a revolving loan fund to recoup and reinvest funds back into housing. A minimum of 5% of annual appropriations would be set aside for tribal communities, and at least 10% would go toward rural communities.
Research from New York University, University of California-Berkeley, and the Climate and Community Institute estimated that the bill would build and preserve 1.25 million housing units, including 876,000 homes for extremely and very low-income households. It also would generate 417,000 jobs annually, including 157,000 construction jobs, the research found.
“Our country is facing a housing crisis, with annual supply falling dramatically behind demand,” Smith said in a statement. “Our proposal would serve renters and home buyers alike, providing millions of Americans in rural and urban communities with more options for a quality, affordable place to call home — with a sense of stability, security, comfort and price that should come with it.”
Efforts to expand affordable senior housing
The American Seniors Housing Association and LeadingAge participated in two separate efforts this summer calling for the allocation of more federal resources to address the affordable senior housing supply shortage.
In submitted testimony to the House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, LeadingAge called out the Worst Case Housing Needs: 2023 Report to Congress, in which the US Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that 2.35 million older adult renter households with very low incomes spent more than half of their incomes on housing in 2021, a 60% increase since 2011 and a 130% increase since 1999.
LeadingAge also urged Congress to preserve existing HUD, USDA rural housing service and low-income housing tax credit housing; expand the supply of affordable housing, including through the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program; improve and expand low-income housing tax credits; and remove red tape and non-funding barriers to affordable housing.
The Homes Act is endorsed by more than 100 housing, civil rights and environmental organizations, as well as labor unions.
