U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) introduced legislation on November 28 to encourage plans to promote long-term housing affordability in communities being revitalized through the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhood Grant Program. The “Keep Affordable Housing in Forgotten Communities Act” (S.3350) would help grant recipients plan for long-term housing affordability, ensuring that revitalizing efforts benefit longtime community members. The bill is supported by NLIHC, the National Housing Law Project, and Grounded Solutions Network, among other organizations.
As communities across the country carry out critically important revitalizing projects, longtime residents are too often pushed out of existing affordable housing. The Keep Affordable Housing in Forgotten Communities Act would help grant recipients seeking to redevelop community-severing infrastructure for new uses to consider a project’s impact on housing. Recipients would be able to use funds to plan for long-term affordability, create or preserve long-term affordable housing units in the neighborhood, and support the creation or expansion of community land trusts.
“Hardworking people should be able to find housing in the communities where they grew up,” said Senator Fetterman. “This is especially true in forgotten communities – places where opportunity dried up as factories and plants closed, but where we are making investments to bring life back. We must invest in the whole community, not just the parts that big businesses and luxury developers can profit from. This bill will allow us to be proactive in how we capitalize on infrastructure investments in forgotten communities, so we can ensure the benefits are passed on to middle- and lower-income residents.”
Read the bill text at: https://tinyurl.com/4z99s932
Read Senator Fetterman’s press release: https://tinyurl.com/mud2vp7w