Senate Passes “ROAD to Housing Act” and Native Homeownership Amendments in “National Defense Authorization Act”
Oct 14, 2025
By Libby O’Neill, NLIHC Senior Policy Analyst and Kayla Blackwell, NLIHC Housing Policy Analyst
The Senate advanced the bipartisan “ROAD to Housing Act” (S. 2651) and Native homeownership legislation on October 9 as amendments (S.Amdt.3901 and S.Amdt.3732) to the “National Defense Authorization Act” (NDAA, S. 2296), which passed the Senate with a vote of 77-22. NLIHC has endorsed the “ROAD to Housing Act,” which previously passed unanimously out of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on July 29 (see Memo, 8/1).
The House passed their version of the NDAA (H.R. 3838) in September, which does not include the “ROAD” amendment or the Native homeownership amendment. The two chambers will now go to conference to reconcile the differences between the two NDAA bills, including amendments.
The “ROAD to Housing Act” includes 40 provisions covering financial literacy, housing supply, manufactured housing, homeownership, program reform, and veterans’ housing, as well as oversight and coordination of housing programs and agencies. It includes several provisions that NLIHC has endorsed and advocated for, including provisions from the “Reforming Disaster Recovery Act” and the “Rural Services Reform Act.” However, NLIHC has specific concerns about two provisions of the bill related to expanding the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and Moving to Work (MTW) programs. You can read more about these provisions in our two-page explainer, as well as in our complete analysis, which covers all 40 provisions in the bill.
The Native homeownership amendment includes several bipartisan reforms to strengthen Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), including Native CDFIs, which provide vital lending services in rural and remote Native communities. In addition to reforms to the CDFI Fund and the CDFI Bond Guarantee Program, the amendment would expand the Native CDFI Relending Program under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Section 502 relending program and help Native families achieve homeownership by expanding the USDA’s pilot program to Native communities. The amendment is modeled after legislation included in the “Rural Housing Service Reform Act,” an NLIHC-endorsed bill to strengthen USDA’s rural housing programs (see Memo, 4/14).
Read NLIHC’s two-page explainer here.
Read NLIHC’s complete bill analysis here.
Read about the “Rural Housing Service Reform Act” here.