Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), ranking member of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee of the House Committee on Financial Services, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) reintroduced a bill that aims to provide millions of housing units over the next decade and save low- and moderate-income families an average of $140 per month.
“The failure to address our national housing shortage has driven up costs that make homeownership difficult, increased rent burdens in communities across the country, and pushed far too many Americans into homelessness,” Cleaver said in a release. “Not only does this preclude working class Americans from obtaining safe, stable, and secure housing, but it prevents millions of our fellow citizens, particularly those in minority communities, from climbing the economic ladder and building generational wealth.
“I’m proud to introduce the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act with Sens. Warren and Warnock, which will spur the construction and rehabilitation of 3 million units nationwide, help to lower housing costs, and expand economic opportunity to families throughout the United States.”
Moody’s Analytics did an independent analysis on what the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act would do for the housing industry. In addition to building or rehabilitating almost 3 million housing units over the next 10 years, the act would also bring down rents for lower-income and middle-class families, saving them an average of $140 a month. To offset the cost of this legislation, the bill calls for a return to the estate tax thresholds in place at the end of the George W. Bush administrations, and institutes more progressive rates above those thresholds.
The bill also:
“The only way to dig our country out of this housing crisis is to build more housing so everyone has a place to call home,” Warren said. “My bill will make bold investments in our country’s housing and encourage local innovation to lower housing costs even more – and it’s all paid for by getting America’s wealthiest families to chip in.”
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