LOCKED OUT – Reversing Federal Housing Failures and Unlocking Opportunity
Congressman Earl Blumenauer has released a report proposing an ambitious federal housing agenda. Recognizing communities across the nation are facing a housing affordability crisis, Blumenauer states, “It’s not a crisis that suddenly manifested by itself. Rather, it is the result of decades of deliberate choices from policymakers who scaled back the federal government’s partnership on housing in favor of other priorities.”
The report proposes solutions for five of our most vexing housing policy challenges:
- Public Housing: Once a major source of affordable housing for low-income Americans, Congress has artificially capped the construction of new public housing for the past 20 years.
- Homelessness: Most of the country’s “successful” communities have thousands of people experiencing homelessness due to astronomical rent increases, job loss, eviction, or mental illness.
- Renter Relief: Rental prices have skyrocketed at a much faster pace than incomes, leaving millions of renters pinching pennies just to get by.
- Equitable Homeownership: The federal government’s largest housing expenditure is the Mortgage Interest Deduction, which is targeted at the wealthiest Americans, while there are minimal tools for helping traditionally marginalized communities buy their first home.
- Fair Housing: Centuries of discrimination left communities segregated and unequal. The federal government has not established the support structures to remedy the burden it caused.