Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) reintroduced on March 21 the “Green New Deal for Public Housing Act.” The bill would create two new grant programs to rehabilitate and upgrade public housing to decrease health hazards and improve energy-efficiency while also aiming to transition the entire public housing stock into zero-carbon, highly energy-efficient developments as swiftly as possible. The legislation would address the substantial public housing capital backlog by ensuring that all public housing meets safe and sanitary standards. NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel spoke at a press event announcing the bill’s reintroduction.
The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act would allow for an increase in public housing units, create an estimated 280,000 jobs, and invest up to $23 billion a year over 10 years in highly energy-efficient developments. In order to transform more than 970,000 units of public housing, the bill would repeal the Faircloth Amendment, which limits the construction of new public housing developments – an important step toward providing affordable housing for all – while also ensuring all public housing is in safe, sanitary, and sustainable condition and expanding resident councils so that public housing residents have a seat at the table when it comes to making important decisions regarding their homes.
“On behalf of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, I applaud Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for their bold, ambitious proposal to not only help preserve America’s public housing for current and future residents, but to modernize these homes to 21st-century green standards, while also helping to ensure that low-income residents benefit from green job and training opportunities,” said NLIHC’s Diane Yentel. “We must combat the affordable housing crisis and climate change – both of which most harm people of color and people with the lowest incomes – through innovative, holistic and bold visions like the Green New Deal for Public Housing.”
Read the press release at: https://tinyurl.com/3px863un
Read a one-pager about the bill at: https://tinyurl.com/mpawahue
Read the bill text at: https://tinyurl.com/yudjmd8e