Senators Call Upon Biden to Make Housing More Affordable

Sen. Sherrod Brown, Chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, led 17 Senate Committee Chairs and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a letter to President Joe Biden requesting that the federal government utilize a “whole-of-government” approach to address our nation’s housing needs.

“Our nation’s housing is an essential piece of our infrastructure, but it is a sector that remains in crisis,” wrote the Senators. “With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, decisive steps have been taken to address many of our nation’s infrastructure deficiencies. However, more must be done to address the challenges facing the housing sector, where lagging production coupled with aging housing stock are making housing more expensive and unable to meet the needs of all Americans."

Brown and Schumer were joined in the letter by Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray, Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed, Indian Affairs Committee Chair Brian Schatz, Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, Aging Committee Chair Bob Casey, Small Business Committee Chair Ben Cardin, Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse, Joint Economic Committee Vice Chair Martin Heinrich, Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Tom Carper, Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner, Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez, Homeland Security Committee Chair Gary Peters, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders, Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, and Banking and Housing Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development Chair Tina Smith.

Brown has held multiple hearings on the affordable housing crisis as Chairman of the Banking and Housing Committee. Brown held a hearing on the state of housing as the Committee’s first hearing of the 118th Congress. In August, Brown chaired a hearing on the crisis facing renters where he called out Wall Street investors for worsening the affordable housing crisis. Brown also held a listening session last year on renters’ experiences with deep-pocked, out-of-state landlords. And he held a hearing where mayors from across the country discussed the need for housing investment in every community.

Just last month, Sen. Brown delivered the following opening statement at a hearing entitled, “The State of Housing 2023.”

Citing affordability issues, Sen. Brown noted, “More renters are struggling in part because rents have skyrocketed over the past three years. Nationwide, rents are 25% higher than they were in 2019. In some places, rent has gone up even more. And while rent growth is finally starting to slow in some places, millions of families are still paying more each month than they would have a year or two ago. That’s means less money for food, less money for childcare, less money for prescription drugs. Saving for a down payment is nearly impossible.”

According to a new report from Redfin, the future of affordable housing is somewhat bleak, as just one-in-five homes were affordable in 2022 for the typical household, the lowest share on record. That number is down from 2-in-5 in 2021. For the report, Redfin considered a house to be affordable if it did not exceed 30% of the local county’s median income. On an annual basis, the number of affordable housing listings fell 53% in 2022, which was also the largest drop since Redfin began keeping track of the statistic in 2013. Some of this is due to a general drop in listings due to the “lock-in” effect—which is keeping people in their homes longer in fear of higher interest rates on new mortgages—but is also due to interest rates themselves, which are rising and reducing buying power.

“Housing affordability is at the lowest level in history, which will widen the wealth gap—especially between millennials,” said Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr. “Many millennials were able to buy their first home before or during the pandemic homebuying boom, but many others were priced out of homeownership and forced to keep renting. That means a lot of young adults missed out on a major wealth building opportunity: the value of homes owned by millennials has risen nearly 30% in the past year.”

Sen. Brown added in his letter to the Biden Administration, “We applaud your Administration for the decisive and historic steps it has taken to keep people in their homes and to increase housing production. Your leadership helped reduce the burden of housing costs during the COVID-19 emergency, increase the supply of quality housing through the Housing Supply Action Plan, and, most recently, protect renters. Yet, additional federal investment is needed to address the growing housing crisis and ensure fair and competitive markets for all renters and homeowners across the country. In your Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Proposal, we urge you to maximize available federal resources–across all relevant agencies–to increase the supply of safe, accessible, affordable homes; lower rental housing cost burdens; and expand access to affordable homeownership so that families can build wealth and older adults, grandfamilies, and people with disabilities can live safely in their communities. We also urge your Administration to undertake further efforts to ensure that the resources Congress has already made available are utilized to support communities’ comprehensive planning and economic development goals, including to address local affordable housing needs.”

Click here to read the full letter from the Senate Banking Committee to the Biden Administration.