WASHINGTON—Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has reintroduced the Homes for All Act, which will dramatically expand the public housing stock in the United States and guarantee housing as a human right. The bill will authorize construction of 12 million new public housing and private, permanently affordable rental units, driving down costs throughout the market and creating a new vision of what public housing looks like in the U.S. She also reintroduced the Frank Adelmann Manufactured Housing Community Sustainability Act. The bill would create a tax credit that incentivizes mobile home park owners to sell their property to the residents for the purposes of creating a cooperative.
The reintroduction comes after 60 Minutes reported this weekend on how the lack of construction of new housing and Wall Street greed is contributing to skyrocketing rent and fueling the housing crisis
"The pandemic has made clear how deep our affordable housing crisis is," said Rep. Omar. "Since the eviction moratorium ended, we have seen an uptick in people being kicked out of their homes. In Minnesota alone, nearly 8,000 are homeless on a given night. And 53,000 are behind on rent. We need solutions that meet the scale of this crisis. We need Homes for All, my bill to invest in 12 million new housing units - vastly expanding the available affordable housing stock, driving down costs throughout the market and creating a new vision of what public housing looks like in the United States of America. I'm proud to reintroduce this bill with the support of so many allies. It's time to treating housing as the human right that it is."
The Homes for All Act repeals the Faircloth amendment, allowing the federal government to begin reinvesting in new public housing for the first time since 1990s. The bill will make a historic investment of $800 billion over the course of 10 years with the goal of building 8.5 million new units of public housing. The bill will also invest an additional $200 billion in the Housing Trust Fund to help local communities build 3.5 million new private, permanent affordable housing projects for low and extremely-low income families.
Importantly, the bill makes public housing operating and capital expenses mandatory spending in order to prevent future investment bias. Making this spending mandatory ensures that the funding needs of all current and future public housing are fully met and cannot be cut in the event of a budget crisis or a change in Administration. This simple change in budgetary structure makes a homes guarantee real – ensuring the federal government is committed to this program the same way it is to Social Security and Medicare.
The bill also creates a new Community Control and Anti-Displacement Fund within HUD. This Fund is appropriated $200 billion over 10 years for the purpose of intervening to protect families from gentrification, prevent displacement and stabilize neighborhoods. The Fund will give grants to local governments who design programs that serve this goal – programs that help re-house displaced people, regulate exploitative developers or provide communities with the resources necessary to make a tenants' right of first refusal an affordable and realistic option.
Fully realized, this proposal will guarantee safe, accessible, sustainable, and permanently-affordable homes for all, create a true public option and affirm housing as a basic human right for every American.
"Across the country, renters are organizing against corporate landlords and winning the conversion of corporate-owned properties into community controlled, permanently affordable social housing. Policymakers must support the Homes for All Bill to expand quality social housing on a mass scale to meet the needs of our communities facing the housing crisis. Renters who've experienced housing insecurity are mobilizing to urge lawmakers to adopt a social housing approach to solving issues of home access, availability and affordability," said Katie Goldstein, Director of Housing Campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy.
"Everyone living in the United States should have safe, accessible, sustainable, and permanently affordable housing: a Homes Guarantee. Right now, our country falls woefully short of delivering on this promise," said Tara Raghuveer, Housing Campaign Director for People's Action. "The housing and homelessness crises are the direct and predictable result of treating housing as a commodity rather than a human right. Representative Omar's groundbreaking new legislation will, for the first time in a century, address the scale of the housing crisis and prioritize people's needs over corporations' profits. The systemic intervention we need includes millions of new public housing units, permanently affordable and off the private market. Representative Omar listens to movement demands and follows the leadership of directly impacted people. This legislation exemplifies the Omar's bold leadership. This will be the new standard by which progressive housing policy is measured."
"I applaud Congresswoman Omar for introducing bold legislation to invest in affordable housing at the scale necessary to ensure that housing is a right, not a privilege," stated Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. "Congress must use every opportunity to advance proven housing solutions – like those included in the Homes for All Act – that move our nation towards universal, stable, and affordable homes for everyone."
"Congresswoman Ilhan Omar demonstrates her commitment to public housing with the reintroduction of her Homes for All Act," said Tess Hembree, Director of Congressional Relations for the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. "The bill is a commendable effort to preserve public housing for future generations by investing over $800 billion within the next decade to maintain and develop millions of units. Public housing provides stable, affordable housing for the lowest income families across our nation."
Homes for All is cosponsored by Reps. Blumenauer, Carson, García, Jayapal, Jones, Norton, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib
It is endorsed by the Center for Popular Democracy, Indivisible, Liberation in a Generation, National Alliance for Community Economic Development Associations (NACEDA), National Association of Latino Community Asset Builders (NALCAB), National Coalition for the Homeless, National Homelessness Law Center, National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), National NeighborWorks Association, National Organization for Women, People's Action, PolicyLink, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Action Fund, and the Working Families Party.
You can read the full text here.
The Manufactured Housing Community Sustainability Act:
The Manufactured Housing Community Sustainability Act is cosponsored by Reps. Bonamici, Lee (CA), and Pocan.
You can read the full text here.