A bill that's designed to develop and build more affordable housing and accelerate the use of low-income housing tax credits passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 390 to 9.
"The passage of the Housing for the 21st Century Act includes real, bipartisan solutions to expanding supply, lowering costs, and providing families with more options," said Rep. French Hill, chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services.
"I look forward to ultimately bringing a bicameral product to the President's desk."
The wide-ranging bill streamlines the permitting process, loosens restrictions on manufactured homes, and lifts the cap on banks' public welfare investments, which includes mortgage credit certificates and mortgage revenue bonds, to 20% from 15%.
The cap limits the number of investments designated as benefiting the public welfare, which includes developing affordable housing.
"The proposal to lift banks' public welfare investment cap would unlock billions of additional private sector investment to support affordable housing development using the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, the nation's most successful tool for producing affordable rental housing," said Emily Cadik, CEO of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition.
In 2006, Congress raised the cap to 15% from 10% which jumped national bank PWIs to $27.9 billion in 2024 as compared to $3.1 billion in 2005.
The Trump administration remains interested in freeing up capital that will build more homes. Provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduced the amount of private activity bond financing needed to qualify for 4% LIHTCs to 25% from 50%.
Housing advocates maintain that dropping the percentage will increase PAB efficiency and allow projects to carry less debt resulting in more eligible projects.
Section 102 of the passed legislation proposes taking an experimental chain saw to permitting red tape by authorizing a HUD pilot program "to award grants to eligible entities to establish 'pattern books' of pre-reviewed designs to make it easier to build homes that are always local building code complaint."
Housing reform bills have been running on mostly parallel tracks in both houses of Congress since last year.
The Senate's
"As we move toward negotiations with the Senate, I'm confident that we can achieve a bicameral agreement that will address our national housing affordability crisis and lead to relief for the American people," said Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.
According to analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center, "Of the 38 sections in the Housing for the 21stCentury Act, 17 align at least in part with provisions in the ROAD to Housing Act. Some sections share only a common policy objective, while others include identical or similar text."
"Another consideration in these negotiations will be deciding which of the 42 sections that appear in only one of the bills should be included in the final package."
The National Association of Counties notes that, "Unlike the Senate's ROAD to Housing package, this bill does not tie Community Development Block Grant allocations to local housing production, preserving existing funding formulas and avoiding performance-based penalties."
The United States Conference of Mayors voiced support for the legislation before the final vote.
"This bipartisan legislation represents an impactful step forward in federal efforts to address the housing needs of cities nationwide," said USCM President David Holt, Mayor of Oklahoma City.
