Source: The Hill —
Expanding affordable housing is commonly considered a Democratic issue. But the issue is tailor-made for Republican approaches to policymaking — and Republicans in Congress should seize this opportunity.
A renewed Republican focus on affordable housing is a must because the shortage of affordable homes is affecting Democratic and Republican areas alike, and because Americans of all political stripes consider the problem one that Washington should try to fix.
More particularly, 77 percent of Republicans consider it important that the federal government addresses homelessness, while 75 percent said the same about high housing costs that help drive inflation, according to a recent Morning Consult poll. Most Republicans also support funding to help preserve affordable rental homes in rural communities, address the shortage of skilled home construction workers and ensure all homeless veterans are connected with permanent, affordable housing.
As outlined in more detail below, an effective Republican response would include tax incentives to encourage much greater private investment in affordable housing production and preservation. That would help achieve such Republican priorities as putting more people to work (by building more homes), spurring upward mobility as more Americans have stable housing with which to pursue the American Dream and combating inflation (shelter costs account for nearly half of the increase in the Consumer Price Index, according to the latest findings of the Bureau of Labor Statistics).
The affordable housing problem is big and growing. Nearly half (21.6 million) of all renters are now considered “cost-burdened” because, as Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies has reported, they spend at least 30 percent of their income on housing. Of the 1.2 million increase in cost-burdened renters since 2021, 1.1 million spent more than half of their income on housing.
