Vice President Biden Releases Affordable Housing Plan

Former Vice President Joe Biden recently released his plans to address the nation’s affordable housing crisis. His plan would invest $640 billion over 10 years “so every American has access to housing that is affordable, stable, safe and healthy, accessible, energy efficient and resilient, and located near good schools and with a reasonable commute to their jobs.”

According to his plan, Biden will accomplish these goals by:

• Ending redlining and other discriminatory and unfair practices in the housing market;
• Providing financial assistance to lower income Americans buy or rent safe, quality housing, including down payment assistance through a refundable and advanceable tax credit and fully funding federal rental assistance;
• Increasing the supply, lowering the cost, and improving the quality of housing, including through investments in resilience, energy efficiency, and accessibility of homes; and
• Pursuing a comprehensive approach to ending homelessness.

More specifically, his housing plan would:

• Invest $20 billion in the national Housing Trust Fund to support the construction and maintenance of affordable homes for people with the greatest needs;
• Guarantee Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers to every eligible household so these households won’t have pay more than 30 percent of their incomes on their rent and utilities;
• Allocate $5 billion in federal funding for a renter’s tax credit per year to support individuals and families who may earn too much to qualify for a Section 8 voucher but still struggle to pay their housing costs;
• Invest $300 million in grants to give local communities incentives to eliminate exclusionary zoning policies;
• Implement the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule requiring communities receiving certain federal funds to proactively identify and address historic patterns of segregation and discrimination;
• Expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit with a $10 billion investment and expand the Community Development Block Grant by $10 billion over 10 years;
• Develop a national strategy for making housing a right for all, and convene a taskforce to develop a roadmap for ending homelessness;
• Provide emergency funding to tackle the homelessness crisis through passage of the Ending Homelessness Act and investing $13 billion to tackle homelessness over five years, particularly among veterans and LGBTQ individuals;
• Expand access to supportive housing and services for seniors and individuals with disabilities;
• Set a national goal of ensuring that 100 percent of formerly incarcerated individuals have housing when they are released from prison;
• Require that HUD contract with only those entities willing to house individuals who are formerly incarcerated; and
• Increase funding for transitional housing for formerly incarcerated individuals.