The Biden administration announced on August 13 new incentives and reforms aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing. The announcement is part of the administration’s Housing Supply Action Plan, an “all-of-government approach” to addressing the rising cost of rent and the severe shortage of affordable, available homes for people with the lowest incomes. The plan aims to support the construction of 2 million new homes.
The latest announcement highlights new funding available for HUD’s Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO Housing) program, which provides communities with grants to identify and remove barriers to the construction and preservation of affordable housing. HUD and the U.S. Department of the Treasury will also indefinitely extend the Federal Financing Bank Multifamily Risk Sharing Program, which allows state and local housing agencies to borrow funds at a reduced interest rate and dramatically reduce the cost of development.
In the announcement, the administration also released new requirements to help streamline transit-oriented development projects, including projects converting commercial building to residential use. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation also proposed a new tool to accelerate the historic preservation review process for federally funded, licensed, or owned housing units. Finally, the announcement launched HUD’s Legacy Challenge, which encourages communities receiving Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding to leverage low-cost, low-interest loans for affordable housing investments.
Read the full announcement here.