The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held a hearing, “‘The Rent Eats First’: How Renters and Communities are Impacted by Today’s Housing Market,” on August 2. The hearing addressed rising rental costs, the impact of evictions, ideas for expanding housing supply, and programs to provide relief to struggling low-income renters. Witnesses included NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel; Matthew Desmond, professor of sociology and director of Princeton University’s Eviction Lab; Laura Brunner, president and CEO of the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority; Rosanna Morey, a small property owner; and Darion Dunn, managing partner at Atlantica Properties. Read Diane’s testimony at: https://bit.ly/3BVg6or
Chair Sherrod Brown (D-OH) opened the hearing by highlighting the long-standing shortage of affordable housing for the lowest-income renters, the rise of institutional investors, and the wide-ranging impacts of housing instability on individuals and communities. Chair Brown addressed the need for long-term solutions to the housing crisis, such as expanding the supply of affordable housing, preserving the current affordable housing stock, and helping renters find and maintain housing through emergency financial assistance and eviction prevention efforts. “This isn’t someone else’s problem. It affects all of us. And we need to work together to solve it,” said Chair Brown.
In her testimony, Diane addressed the underlying causes of the affordable housing crisis, discussed the current state of the housing market, and outlined immediate actions the Biden administration must take to protect the lowest-income and most marginalized renters from the harmful impacts of inflation and rising rents, high rates of eviction fillings, and increasing homelessness. Diane urged the Biden administration to prevent rent-gouging; expand renter protections, such as source-of-income protections, just-cause eviction standards, and anti-rent gouging protections, to those living in properties with federally backed mortgages; and activate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance (PA) program and the Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP) to help move individuals experiencing homelessness out of shelters and encampments and into hotels and permanent housing.
Further, Diane explained that Congress must increase investments in long-term solutions to the underlying shortage of affordable, accessible homes and improve renter protections for the lowest-income people. To address the underlying causes of the housing crisis, Congress should expand rental assistance, increase housing supply, increase short-term rental assistance, improve renter protections, and eliminate restrictive local zoning laws.
Professor Matthew Desmond focused his remarks on the country’s eviction crisis and the negative impacts of eviction on families. “As a direct result of the rental housing crisis, the United States has a much higher eviction rate than other industrialized democracies.” Evictions are not concentrated in coastal cities, Professor Desmond explained, but are impacting renters across the nation in both rural and urban communities. He emphasized that evictions have an extremely negative effect on children’s education, people’s health, future housing prospects, work productivity, and other areas. “Eviction is not just a condition of poverty; it is a cause of poverty,” said Professor Desmond.
The NLIHC-supported bipartisan “Eviction Crisis Act” (S.2182) and the “Stable Families Act,” the House companion bill, would provide temporary assistance for households to help prevent the many negative consequences associated with evictions and homelessness, including physical and mental health challenges, loss of possessions, instability for children, and increased difficulty finding a new home.
In response to a question from Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) about who bears the burden of the housing crisis, Diane explained that inaction is expensive. “As a country, we pay to allow for homelessness and housing poverty to persist and we pay for it through increased healthcare costs for families and parents. We pay for it through lower educational attainment for kids,” she said. “Families that are unaffordably or precariously housed earn less over their lifetimes. They pay less in taxes. The flip of that is also true. When we invest in affordable housing, there are savings to be found in many other areas of our life and throughout the federal government.”
One solution to addressing housing affordability is to bridge the gap between incomes and housing costs by making rental assistance available to all eligible households. In response to a question from Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) about the NLIHC-supported “Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act” (S.1991), Diane said that the 500,000 new vouchers targeted to families with young children could effectively end family homelessness. She added that the funds included for mobility counseling are especially important because they allow counselors to help families find communities that are best for them and then help them obtain and retain housing in those communities.
The Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act, introduced by Senators Van Hollen and Todd Young (R-IN), would provide 500,000 new housing vouchers and counseling services to help families with children move to areas connected to good-performing schools, well-paying jobs, healthcare, and transit. Professor Desmond explained that “when families have the opportunity to move to neighborhoods with lower rates of poverty, lower rates of crime, [and] higher rates of public safety, their lives are improved in so many different ways.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) highlighted the negative impacts of institutional investors and corporate landlords buying up rental properties. Professor Desmond explained that families living in properties owned by corporate landlords can experience rapidly increasing rents and a reduction in housing quality. Senator Warren cited an investigation by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which found that during the height of the pandemic, corporate landlords illegally evicted families by the thousands. In response, Diane emphasized that Congress must enforce tenant protections, prevent egregious rent hikes, and hold corporate landlords accountable.
While increasing the housing supply is critical to addressing the housing crisis, Diane said it could take years or even a decade for supply to meet housing demand. In the meantime, families will continue to struggle to pay rent even if prices return to pre-pandemic levels. In response to a question from Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) regarding tax cuts for renters, Diane said, “cash in people’s pockets will help them pay the bills – whether it is in the form of a continued extended child tax credit, which did more to help alleviate child poverty in our country than anything in recent times, or whether it is in the form of renter’s tax credits that can also support low-income renters to afford the rent. They can have a meaningful impact on housing affordability.” NLIHC supports the creation of a renters’ tax credit, like the program proposed in the “Rent Relief Act” (H.R.8357).
View a recording of the hearing and read the witnesses’ testimony at: https://bit.ly/3PyNeWR
Read Diane’s written testimony at: https://bit.ly/3BVg6or