Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Plan to Increase Affordable Housing Supply
On August 13, the Biden-Harris administration announced plans to support the construction of 2 million new affordable housing units. The publication is part of the Administration's Housing Supply Action Plan that was announced back in May 2024 with the intent of closing America's housing supply shortfall in 5 years.
Under the plan, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is announcing the availability of $100 million through its Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO Housing) program, which provides grants to communities to identify and remove barriers to affordable housing production and preservation. HUD is also launching a Legacy Challenge - encouraging communities that directly receive Community Development Block Grants to utilize low-cost, low interest loans for transformative housing investments. Up to $250 million in loan financing will be made available through the Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program for adaptive reuse, commercial-to-residential conversions, rehabilitation of existing housing, housing enabling infrastructure such as water and sewer line installation or upgrades, and revolving loan pools to support local development. Additionally, HUD anticipates finalizing a new rule that would enable duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes to be built under the HUD Code for the first time, extending the cost-saving benefits of multi-unit construction.
The Department of the Treasury and HUD are also announcing a major change to the Federal Financing Bank (FFB) Multifamily Risk Sharing Program that would provide greater interest rate predictability for state and local housing finance agencies that finance housing projects through the FFB. This program is intended to reduce costs for state and local housing finance agencies by allowing them to borrow funds at just above the rate at which the US government borrows.
Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is announcing new guidance to streamline and clarify requirements for closing DOT loans for residential development near transit, including commercial-to-residential conversions. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) has proposed a new tool that would accelerate historic preservation reviews for millions of federally-funded, licensed, or owned housing units across the country.
