Housing supply and availability are near the top of severe concerns facing local leaders, according to NLC’s 2025 State of the Cities report, with 57 percent of survey respondents rating the availability of housing in their community as Poor or Very Poor, and 72 percent of mayors calling the high cost of housing a primary challenge.
There are two major housing packages with substantial bipartisan backing currently moving in Congress. The Senate moved first with the introduction of the ROAD to Housing Act (ROAD stands for Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream), introduced by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). The Senate approved the ROAD to Housing Act as an amendment to an unrelated bill in October, but ROAD was later stripped out. The Senate is likely to vote on ROAD again as a stand-alone bill near the end of February. NLC’s statement of support, delivered by Immediate Past President, Mayor Steve Patterson of Athens, OH, is available on the Banking Committee Website and NLC site as well.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-AR) and Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA) introduced the Housing for the 21st Century Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House by a vote of 330-9 this week, Monday, February 9th. Housing Subcommittee Chair Mike Flood (R-NE) and Ranking Member Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO) undertook a listening tour of local leaders and associations, including NLC, to introduce improvements to the CDBG and HOME grant programs, and those improvements are included in the House bill. NLC’s statement of support is available on the Financial Services Committee Website and again on the NLC site.
Neither bill claims to be a silver bullet for resolving the housing crisis. While not identical, both bills aim to provide dozens of new resources, incentives, and federal regulatory relief to public and private-sector actors to spur the development of more affordable housing. As the bills advance, they are likely to be combined into a single housing package that includes House, Senate, and White House proposals.
The Senate ROAD to Housing Act and the House Housing for the 21st Century Act: What’s in common for local governments?
Both the Senate and House bills are first and foremost policy bills, not funding bills. They would primarily make or incentivize changes to systems that, together, undergird housing development. Rather than authorizing new funding, the proposed programs in each bill generally rely on repurposing existing funds. For local governments, that means new flexibility to use certain federal grant funds in ways they can’t today. It also means neither bill takes a completely blind eye to the role of local governments.
Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
Both bills take an incentive-based approach to the land use and zoning component of housing development. Both direct HUD to convene stakeholders — including local officials — to develop best practices for state and local governments on zoning and land-use policies related to housing outcomes. The legislation stipulates recommendations cannot be one-size-fits-all, given the myriad of different environmental and economic conditions across the country, and specifically directs “differentiations between best practices for rural, suburban, and urban communities, and communities with different levels of density or population distribution.” This section also enshrines a strong guardrail against federal overreach by stating “Nothing in this section may be construed to permit the Department of Housing and Urban Development to take an adverse action against or fail to provide otherwise offered actions or services for any State or locality if the State or locality declines to adopt a guideline or best practice.”
Federal Grants
Both bills would reauthorize the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which provides annual grants to eligible local governments for rental and homeownership housing development. The Senate bill makes modest positive changes to the program by increasing the cap on administrative costs and making it easier to support small-scale affordable housing. The House bill goes further, allowing HOME funds to support affordable and workforce housing development, and permitting HOME grantees that are not eligible for CDBG funds to make HOME expenditures for infrastructure improvements necessary for new housing.
Both bills also authorize new federal grants for cities seeking funds to incorporate pre-approved housing designs, also called pattern-book homes, into the permitting process, thereby significantly shortening development timelines for builders that meet all pre-approved design requirements.
Streamlining Federal Requirements
Both bills would exclude certain small-scale and infill housing development from costly federal NEPA environmental review requirements.
Both bills also direct better coordination and alignment between HUD and USDA housing programs and requirements, increase FHA multifamily loan limits, streamline inspection requirements for landlords participating in the Housing Choice voucher program, modernize policies and reduce regulatory obstacles related to factory-built homes, and reduce obstacles for veterans’ housing.
What’s the difference between the Senate and House bills?
Outside their commonalities, each bill contains unique policy and program proposals absent from the other.
The Senate’s “ROAD to Housing Act” would:
- Authorize bonus funds for CDBG grantees that meet certain housing production goals. Bonuses would be funded by reductions of CDBG funding for grantees that remain below median rates of housing improvement, with a number of exceptions for conditions beyond a locality’s control, including disaster emergencies and state limits on local authority.
- Permanently authorize the CDBG-Disaster Recovery Program, which will make funding more quickly available to communities hit by presidentially declared disasters. Currently, Congress must approve a separate spending package for CDBG-DR following a disaster declaration, leading to unpredictable delays in the delivery of disaster recovery funds.
- Establish the Innovation Fund and the Whole Homes Repair Pilot Program. The Innovation Fund would award new competitive grants annually to local governments that can document measurable increases in housing supply for housing construction and rehabilitation, and infrastructure improvements, including water and sewer. The Whole Homes Repair Pilot would allow Lead Hazard Reduction Grant funds to cover additional home rehabilitation needs other than lead remediation.
- Authorize HUD to prioritize funding for housing projects in Opportunity Zones.
The House’s “Housing for the 21st Century Act” would:
- Allow CDBG grant expenditures for new housing construction. Currently, CDBG housing expenditures are limited to rehabilitation. The House bill does not authorize CDBG bonuses or reductions based on housing production as the Senate bill does.
- Establish new grants for local and regional authorities seeking funds to review and update building code requirements or adopt regional housing plans. It would also establish guidelines to spur the adoption of single-stair multifamily housing designs.
Contact Your Senators
The housing legislation has bipartisan support, but your voice is needed to help push it forward by ensuring your Senator will vote for it on the floor. Join NLC in urging your Member of Congress to support the passage of landmark legislation to support housing in your communities.
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