Washington, D.C. - With the introduction of his new plan to tackle America’s housing affordability crisis, Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) joins other Democratic presidential candidates in proposing bold plans to address the nation’s affordable housing crisis. Senator Bennet’s plan would build more affordable homes for the lowest-income people in America through an investment of $400 billion over ten years in the national Housing Trust Fund. The plan would also dramatically increase the supply of opportunity housing vouchers to eventually “meet the full demand for all eligible families” within 15 years. The senator’s plan also includes measures to reduce exclusionary zoning, ban source-of-income discrimination, expand the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program and Capital Magnet Fund, create a $7.5 billion-per-year grant program for housing with supportive services, reform federal housing tax incentives, and more.
Our nation’s rental housing crisis continues to worsen. Nationally, there is a shortage of 7 million homes affordable and available to the lowest-income renters. In 99% of counties in the US, a full-time minimum-wage worker cannot afford a one-bedroom rental home at the fair market rent. Voters are demanding the presidential hopefuls offer solutions, and candidates are increasingly responding by proposing ambitious housing plans to address the U.S. affordable housing crisis on the scale needed.
According to a national public opinion poll commissioned by NLIHC’s Opportunity Starts at Home multisector affordable homes campaign, support for significant federal investments in housing solutions has grown dramatically over the last several years. Today, most people in America (85%) believe ensuring everyone has a safe, decent, affordable place to live should be a “top national priority.” Eighty percent believe – on a bipartisan basis - that Congress should “take major action” to make housing more affordable for low-income people. The public overwhelmingly supports significant federal investments in programs like the national Housing Trust Fund, rental assistance through tax credits or vouchers, and emergency cash assistance to help low-income families experiencing a financial set-back avoid eviction.
NLIHC’s nonpartisan Our Homes, Our Votes 2020 candidate and voter engagement project is elevating solutions to the nation’s housing crisis in the presidential campaign and tracking what all the candidates have to say about housing and homelessness: www.ourhomes-ourvotes.org
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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/