HUD Secretary to Chair White House Council on Affordable Housing

President Trump recently signed an Executive Order to establish the White House Council on Eliminating Barriers to Affordable Housing Development. The council is headed by HUD Secretary Ben Carson and consists of members across eight federal agencies. They will engage with state, local, and tribal leaders across the country to identify and remove the government regulations that impede the production of affordable homes. To curtail burdensome regulations, the council will be tasked with accomplishing the following items by January 2021:

• Work across agencies, states, local governments, tribal governments, and private-sector stakeholders to identify policies that artificially increase the cost of developing affordable housing;
• Report on the quantifiable effect that federal, state, local, and tribal regulatory barriers have on affordable housing development, the economy, and society;
• Take action to reduce federal regulatory and administrative burdens that discourage private investment and housing development;
• Take action within existing federal programs to align and support local, and tribal state efforts to reduce regulatory and administrative burdens that discourage housing development;
• Recommend federal, state, local, and tribal policies that would reduce and streamline statutory, regulatory, and administrative burdens that inhibit the development of affordable housing supply at all levels of government; and
• Incentivize state, local, and tribal governments to reduce barriers to affordable housing development.