House passes major housing bill, sending it to Trump

bipartisan housing – The House passed Congress’ most significant housing legislation in decades on Tuesday, voting 358-32 after Senate approval Monday, with the bill now headed to President Trump. The package—cleared over weeks of negotiation—targets housing supply constraints thr

For weeks, housing affordability has been a refrain in political campaigns and kitchen-table conversations alike. On Tuesday. the House put a number on that pressure—passing Congress’ most significant housing legislation in decades with an overwhelming bipartisan vote and sending it to President Trump’s desk.

The bill cleared the House 358-32 after the Senate approved it on Monday, 85-5. Those opposed in both chambers were Republicans. The Trump administration has signaled support for the legislation, making it likely to become law.

Before the vote, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), one of the lawmakers who put together the deal, told colleagues on the House floor that “This legislation must serve as a foundation for continued action, not the final step in addressing our nation’s housing crisis.”

At the center of the measure is a promise to change how housing gets built and who can buy it. The bill aims to boost supply through dozens of targeted provisions expected to take effect over several years. Among them: removing regulatory barriers to building affordable housing units. preventing large investors from buying up single-family homes. and incentivizing new housing in cities that receive federal funding.

For advocates, the political oddness of it matters as much as the policy. After weeks of negotiation in a divided Congress, the bipartisan agreement that produced the final package was highly unusual. It came as public frustration with the economy has deepened. with inflation. elevated gas prices. and the ongoing effects of Trump’s tariffs all weighing on many households.

David Gonzalez Rice. senior vice president of public policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. said the legislation focuses on addressing supply constraints and making federal programs easier to use. “It’s a big step in the right direction. ” Gonzalez Rice said. “and there’s still a lot of work to do.”.

The political stakes are clear: Democrats want to use affordability to help win control of at least one chamber in November’s midterm elections, while Republicans are trying to hold their majorities. Members of both parties also wanted to be able to tell voters they had acted in good faith.

“It would’ve been hard to justify to voters during their campaigns that their party did not do everything they could to advance the first meaningful legislation on housing policy in decades,” said David Garcia, deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

The bill was shaped by intense negotiations led by Waters and Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), after months of discussions across the parties. Hill said on the House floor. “The work has been extraordinary between the majority and minority in this House. answering the call [for] solutions from the American people.”.

The White House posture also sets the stage for what happens next. Trump has largely dismissed the affordability issue. last week calling it “a fake word.” Still. the administration indicated support in a March statement of policy. It said it “strongly supports” passage of the bill. calling it “significant advances in federal housing policy.” Trump also signed an executive order suggesting regulatory barriers to home building should be removed—an idea reflected in the bill.

The housing crisis the bill responds to has been building for years: rising costs, a shortage of affordable housing, and higher mortgage rates, among other factors. Recent rising construction costs and labor shortages have made things worse, according to the National Assn. of Home Builders.

The slowdown is showing up in the numbers. The number of new housing starts in May dropped by more than 15%, according to a report last week from the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In California, housing supply has increased in recent years, but the shortage remains significant and prices remain high. The state has among the highest rates of households spending disproportionate amounts of their income on housing. according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Gonzalez Rice said the momentum in Washington—something he described as a surprise to advocates—reflects public sentiment.

“It speaks to the broader understanding of the public that housing is a policy problem, that government can do something about it and the expectation that government will do something about it,” he said. “It’s clear elected officials are hearing from their constituents.”

The package includes nearly 50 provisions. One of the biggest is a prohibition on investor purchase of single-family homes. intended to help increase housing supply for individual buyers. The bill also aims to help cities convert abandoned buildings into new housing and help landlords and homeowners make home repairs.

Garcia said two measures could be particularly significant for cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. One ties some federal funding under the Community Development Block Grant program to housing production—meant to motivate cities with low housing supply and high costs to build more housing. The other allows block grant money to be used for affordable housing construction, opening a new revenue source for cities. Garcia said California’s major cities may be spurred to increase new housing in future years. and they also could benefit from the ability to direct block grant funding to housing.

“Costs to build are so high,” he said, “that any new funding could be critical.”

Among other steps described as potentially quicker to show results is a plan to preserve a rental assistance program for nearly 400. 000 rural homeowners. The bill also includes a measure to streamline the leasing process for families using vouchers. while exempting certain projects from a set of environmental regulations to speed up review and construction.

It also seeks to make it easier to build manufactured homes. One provision removes a requirement that they be built on a chassis; the Senate committee estimated that would reduce the cost of each new unit by up to $10,000.

With the House vote completed and the Senate already on record, the legislation now waits at President Trump’s desk. The question for lawmakers and voters is whether the reforms will translate into enough housing supply to ease the affordability pressure that has followed Americans through inflation and higher costs—especially in places where time and housing inventory have both been running out.

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