The historic $150 billion investment in affordable housing included in the “Build Back Better Act” continues to be at risk of elimination as Congress and the White House negotiate a slimmed-down version of the bill. The bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in the fall includes funding for the HoUSed campaign’s top priorities: $25 billion to expand housing vouchers to an additional 300,000 low-income households; $65 billion to preserve public housing and improve living conditions for the nation’s more than 2 million public housing residents; and $15 billion for the national Housing Trust Fund to build, maintain, and operate an estimated 150,000 new units of deeply affordable, accessible housing. If enacted, these provisions would result in the largest single investment in quality, affordable, accessible homes for households with the lowest incomes in history.
Despite the dire need for these investments, progress on the Build Back Better Act has largely stalled in the Senate. Congressional Democrats are using a process called “budget reconciliation,” which allows legislation to move through the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes instead of the 60 votes usually required in the chamber. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D) thwarted chances of enacting the House-passed bill when he announced in December 2021 that he, the lone Democratic holdout, would not support the bill as it is currently written.
Congressional leaders and the White House have been discussing how the legislation could be changed to win Senator Manchin’s support, but efforts to reduce the size and scope of the Build Back Better Act put affordable housing investments at risk of deep cuts or elimination. President Biden has suggested repackaging provisions that do not make it into a scaled-back version into stand-alone bills. However, such stand-alone bills would require support from all 50 Senate Democrats and at least 10 Senate Republicans as well as separate floor time in the House and Senate, leaving virtually no path to enactment this year.
Members of Congress are Responding to Your Advocacy – Keep It Up!
Thanks to the tireless work of advocates across the country, congressional champions such as House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Representative Hakeem Jefferies (D-NY), Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Representative Juan Vargas (D-CA), Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), and more are publicly voicing their support for the Build Back Better Act’s housing provisions. “Housing is a human right,” said Representative Coleman in a recent tweet, “and every unhoused American is a person whose country has failed them.”
Congress must seize this moment to quickly enact a recovery package that includes the bold investments in housing vouchers, public housing, and the national Housing Trust Fund needed to put the country on a path towards ending homelessness and housing instability for all. Do what you can to help:
- Your members of Congress need to hear from you about why investments in housing vouchers, public housing, and the Housing Trust Fund are critical to your community and why they must remain in any budget reconciliation package. Breaking housing investments off into a separate bill is unacceptable.
- Join more than 1,800 national state, and local organizations by signing on to the HoUSed campaign’s national letter in support of historic investments in housing vouchers, public housing, and the Housing Trust Fund in a reconciliation bill.
Thank you for your advocacy!