Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced on September 26 the “American Housing and Economic Mobility Act,” a bold and comprehensive affordable housing bill designed to end homelessness and housing poverty in America. NLIHC supports the bill.
Senator Warren’s bill directly addresses the underlying cause of the affordable housing crisis – the severe shortage of affordable rental homes for people with the lowest incomes – through a robust $450 billion investment over ten years in the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF). The HTF is the first new program in a generation that invests in the production, preservation, and operation of affordable homes for the lowest income people in America.
By expanding protections under the Fair Housing Act to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, and source of income, the bill promotes economic mobility and opportunity. The proposal creates new incentives for local governments to reduce barriers that drive up the cost of housing and encourage the private sector to do more to address the housing needs of the middle class. The bill also includes investments in rural and tribal housing, an expansion of the Capital Magnet Fund, reforms to strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act, relief for high-cost cities, and measures to redress harmful federal housing policies of the past through down-payment assistance to first-time homebuyers living in formerly redlined or officially segregated areas.
The entire bill is paid for by restoring the estate tax on America’s wealthiest families to President George W. Bush-era levels and instituting more progressive rates above those thresholds. “These [tax] changes will affect only about 10,000 of the wealthiest families in the country,” states Senator Warren’s press release on the bill.
NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel was quoted in Senator Warren’s press release, stating the legislation “would help millions of the lowest income seniors, people with disabilities, families with children, and individuals who struggle to pay rent and the half a million people without a home at all. . . . Senator Warren's proposal has the power to transform lives and communities.”
Read NLIHC’s factsheet on the “American Housing and Economic Mobility Act” at: https://bit.ly/2N0Aibg
Read NLIHC’s press release at: http://nlihc.org/press/releases/11185
Read Senator Warren’s press release at: https://bit.ly/2zvSK7T
Read the legislation at: https://bit.ly/2Qb4vGt