Authored by Council Member Tiffany D. Thomas, chair of the Housing & Affordability Committee, Houston City Council and member of NLC’s America’s Housing Comeback Advisory Group.
As America prepares to commemorate 250 years of nationhood, we should pause to ask a simple but defining question:
What Does the American Dream Require Now?
For generations, the American Dream has always included homeownership. But today, the dream must expand to reflect modern realities. It must include the ability to rent safely and affordably. To remain in the community that raised you. To age in place. To recover after disaster. And for our unhoused neighbors, it must include access to housing with dignity and a pathway toward stability.
If we are serious about affordability and housing production, we must look to cities who are bringing public and private sector leaders together. That’s exactly what the National League of Cities is doing through America’s Housing Comeback.
For too long, housing conversations have centered almost exclusively on federal programs and funding streams.
Federal partnership remains critical and irreplaceable. With the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act signaling renewed national attention to supply and affordability, local cities are a step closer to fully actualizing the promise of those resources.
But America’s housing comeback will not be built solely through appropriations in Washington.
It will be built in city halls, planning departments, neighborhood meetings, public-private partnerships, and local budgets.
Cities increasingly understand that housing ecosystems are healthiest when they create mobility across the income spectrum. The same city must simultaneously address homelessness and housing instability at 0–30% AMI, preserve affordable rental opportunities for households at 30–60% AMI, and expand attainable homeownership and workforce housing opportunities for households between 60–120% AMI. Failure at any point along the continuum places pressure on every other segment of the market.
In Texas alone, it has been estimated that 306,000 additional housing units are needed to meet demand, according to a 2024 Texas Comptroller’s report. The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2026 Gap report shows the shortage is even more severe for extremely low-income renters: while the national average is 35 affordable and available homes for every 100 extremely low‑income households, Texas has only 26. In the Houston region, the gap is widest, with just 17 affordable and available homes per 100 extremely low‑income renter households—one of the most strained housing markets in the state. Local governments of all sizes from coast to coast are proving that housing leadership can look different while pursuing the same goal: more homes, more affordability, and more pathways to stability.
Some communities are modernizing land use and permitting, like South Bend, Indiana where the city is leading innovative zoning solutions by pre-approving housing designs. Others are investing directly in affordable production, creating housing trust funds, leveraging bonding tools, expanding housing choice, or rethinking how public assets can unlock development.
Across Minnesota, communities are deploying targeted public investment to create housing opportunities and support economic growth. Their scale may differ, but their challenge is universal: communities cannot grow if people cannot afford to live there.
And the most effective cities are resisting false choices because local leaders understand something increasingly clear: housing is not simply a social issue.
Housing is infrastructure.
Housing is workforce development.
Housing is economic competitiveness.
Housing is quality of life.
And while we tackle something as foundational to the American experience as housing, local cities are also creating something equally American: opportunity through work. That’s what NLC’s America’s Housing Comeback initiative is all about.
Housing production is not simply about units—it is an opportunity to boost the economy and reignite the skilled workforce that helped build the American middle class.
These are the tradesmen from plumbers to landscapers to carpenters, who have long served as engines of upward mobility.
Across the country, community colleges, K–12 career pathways, apprenticeship programs, labor partnerships, and adult workforce initiatives are all shifting to train and retrain the workforce that will build America’s future.
And that is one of the most overlooked opportunities before us.
Cities have an opportunity to do more than build housing—we can put Americans to work building communities. Because in America’s next 250 years, our legacy should not be whether people could afford to visit our cities. It should be whether they can afford to call them home.
You Don’t Have to be a Big City to Build More Housing: Everett’s Housing Playbook for Mid-Sized and Small Cities
- CitiesSpeak Guest
Home Protection Programs: Delivering Conservation Results and Constituent Savings
- Oncourse
NLC’s Statement on U.S. House Passing 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act
NLC’s Statement on Bipartisan Passing of 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act
Leveraging Planning Tools and Technology to Unlock Housing Production
- Stephanie Onuaja
