Washington, D.C. – Mayor Pete Buttigieg joins other Democratic presidential candidates in releasing bold plans to address the nation’s affordable housing crisis. Mayor Buttigieg’s plan—released today—aims to increase the overall supply of available, affordable, and accessible homes by over 2 million.
Mayor Buttigieg’s proposal would invest $154 billion over ten years in the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) to support the construction, maintenance, and operation of 1.4 million new affordable homes for people with the greatest needs. It also includes a directive to the Department of Treasury and HUD to collaborate with state housing financing agencies to ensure strong HTF investments in “rural and native housing, housing for domestic violence survivors, and housing for individuals with disabilities.”
Mayor Buttigieg’s plan would “resource long-underfunded” programs—like public housing—that provide “critical support to American families.” The mayor would provide funding to reduce barriers preventing people from accessing public housing and would invest up to $50 billion to modernize and repair public housing. The plan would also institute “aggressive controls to ensure that local public housing authorities monitor and eliminate lead hazards” and invest in public housing technology improvements.
Mayor Buttigieg would seek to address homelessness for families with children through a series of initiatives such as emergency rental assistance, rapid-rehousing, tenant education, cooperative housing development, and code enforcement.
There is a nationwide shortage of 7 million homes affordable and available to the lowest-income renters, and just one in four deeply poor families that qualify for housing assistance receives it. According to a recent poll commissioned by NLIHC’s Opportunity Starts at Home multisector affordable homes campaign, 85% of Americans believe ensuring everyone has a safe, decent, affordable place to live should be a “top national priority.” Eighty percent said Congress and the president should “take major action” to make housing more affordable for low-income people. Mayor Buttigieg’s housing plan is another example of presidential candidates responding to voters’ calls for action on this critical issue.
Read Mayor Buttigieg’s housing plan at: https://tinyurl.com/w9zgh99
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NLIHC has launched the nonpartisan Our Homes, Our Votes 2020 voter and candidate engagement project to raise the issue of affordable housing in the 2020 elections, to urge candidates to discuss how they will deal with the crisis, to track their comments and proposals, and to engage more low-income renters in the voting. Learn more at: https://www.ourhomes-ourvotes.org/