Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) reintroduced the “American Housing and Economic Mobility (AHEM) Act” in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on July 29. The visionary bill would provide the large-scale investments required to construct nearly 3 million new units of affordable housing. NLIHC has endorsed the bill.
If enacted, the AHEM Act would invest over $44 billion dollars in the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) annually for 10 years, resulting in $445 billion in total investments to build, repair, and operate nearly 2 million homes for households with low incomes. Created by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (but not funded until 2016), the HTF is the nation’s first new housing program since 1974 targeted to building, preserving, and operating rental housing for people with the lowest incomes.
The AHEM Act would also invest over $1 billion in the construction of new rental housing and homeownership opportunities in rural communities; provide over $2.5 billion to build or repair homes on Native American or Native Hawaiian lands; and provide $70 billion to address dire repair needs in public housing. Decades of extreme underfunding by Congress have allowed the nation’s public housing stock to fall into disrepair, exposing residents to hazards like mold, asbestos, lead, and pest infestations, all of which negatively impact residents’ health. In addition, the bill would increase the supply of affordable, accessible housing by mandating that housing built with or supported by funding from the AHEM Act must have double the federal minimum number of units accessible to people with physical and sensory disabilities.
“The ‘American Housing and Economic Mobility Act’ has the power to transform lives and communities,” said NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel in a press release for the bill. “By significantly expanding investments in proven solutions, like the national Housing Trust Fund and Public Housing, this legislation provides resources at the scale necessary to help those most harmed by America’s housing crisis. I applaud Senator Warren, Senator Warnock, and Representative Cleaver for their leadership in advancing bold solutions to address an underlying cause of America’s housing crisis: the severe shortage of rental homes affordable to our nation’s lowest-income and most marginalized households.”
According to an independent analysis by Moody’s Analytics, the investments included in the bill would build or rehabilitate nearly 3 million housing units over the next decade and bring down rents for lower-income and middle-class families by 10%, saving the average family $140 per month. The cost of the bill would also be fully offset by returning the estate tax thresholds to previous levels, instituting more progressive estate tax rates above these thresholds, and closing loopholes that enable high-income households to avoid paying estate taxes.