Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said Thursday he is reintroducing legislation to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in affordable homes, as well as a new bill to improve military housing.
Warnock has signed on to the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri. The bill would fund construction of three million new units of housing for middle-income and low-income Americans.
In a Zoom news conference on Thursday morning, Warnock said housing affordability and availability touched “all corners of our state,” including his hometown of Savannah, where he grew up in Kayton Homes public housing.
“Despite working harder, Georgians are struggling more than ever to put a roof over their families’ heads. And in almost every community in America — rural, suburban, urban — we’re in the middle of an affordable housing crisis,” he said.
Housing prices and rent are on voters’ minds heading into this year’s general election, and are impacting people in the battleground state of Georgia. As of June, the median house price here was almost $335,000, according to Zillow, and about $400,000 in Atlanta.
In the Peach State, almost a quarter of renter households are low income and there is an estimated shortfall of 200,000 affordable rental homes available for those families, according to officials.
“The only way to dig our country out of this housing crisis is to build more housing so everyone has a place to call home,” Warren said in a statement. “My bill will make bold investments in our country’s housing and encourage local innovation to lower housing costs even more — and it’s all paid for by getting America’s wealthiest families to chip in.”
Senators said they would fund the bill by raising taxes on the wealthy, and reverting to estate tax thresholds in place toward the end of the George W. Bush administration in the late 2000s.
The bill would commit close to $550 billion to housing, with $445 billion going toward the federal government’s Housing Trust Fund to build, renovate and maintain two million homes for low-income families.
An independent analysis by Moody’s Analytics said the new housing would bring down rents for lower-income and middle-income families by 10%. The senators said that would save families an average of $140 a month.
Added to that, Warnock said the bill will create incentives for municipal governments to do away with land use restrictions.
A 2020 report by the D.C.-based think tank The Brookings Institution said local governments should dismantle regulatory hurdles, including zoning laws on building height caps and minimum lot sizes, which can stymie construction of housing in U.S. cities.
“Instead of supporting development, state and local governments have imposed needless rules that prevent affordable housing from being built in the first place, raising costs for all Americans,” Warnock said.
The bill would funnel $10 billion into a grant program for infrastructure, parks, and schools. But to remain eligible, local governments applying to the program would need to reform land use laws.
No Republicans have signed on to support the bill.
In addition, Warnock introduced the bipartisan bill to address conditions in military housing with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The Military Housing Performance Insight Act, would increase transparency and oversight by requiring the Department of Defense to make public reports on privatized housing at military bases.
Warnock’s office said that even though Congressional hearings exposed unsafe conditions of military housing in 2019, there are still problems with military housing across Georgia and elsewhere.
“Our service members and their families deserve safe, quality housing. By making these reports publicly accessible, we can better empower military families and communities to advocate for their needs effectively,” Warnock said.
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