Bipartisan plan aims to make the American Dream affordable again for millions of first-time homebuyers
A bipartisan pair of lawmakers is working on making housing costs cheaper for middle and lower-income Americans across the country.
House Main Street Caucus Chairman Mike Flood, R-Neb., is teaming up with Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, R-Mo., on legislation they hope will finally give millions of home buyers some relief, as the dream of ownership remains a distant goal for many.
It would do so by targeting the federal government’s HOME Investments Partnership Program, which provides grants to state and local jurisdictions to build affordable housing.
That program, Flood said, has not been significantly amended since the early 1990s.
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“Traditionally, the program that we’re remodeling… has favored multifamily. But an apartment is not the American Dream. The American Dream is a single-family home,” he said.
“And with these changes to the program, it’s my hope that these dollars will leverage the building of new homes, it will leverage the rehab of dilapidated structures, including homes, and it will make some multifamily opportunities even more attractive.”
Asked how it would help a young couple buy their first home in his own home state, for example, Flood pointed out that “increased demand” for housing developers to meet strict existing codes for sewer systems, paved streets, and stormwater systems has resulted in housing lot prices rising dramatically — particularly with recent years’ high inflation.
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Shifting those costs to the state and local governments, he said, would help lower those costs.
“The cost of a lot, before you even buy the ground, there’s already $25,000 in there. If the city of Columbus, Nebraska, gets $2.5 million from the Home Partnership program, the city can go in and expand stormwater and sewer and maybe even pavement and streets,” he explained.
“And suddenly, instead of being a $50,000 lot, it’s a $20,000 lot. Instead of being a $300,000 home, you know, it’s a $270,000 home because the cost of that was ultimately given to the city, and the city used it to build city infrastructure, not making the developer do that.”
Another focus was expanding who can qualify for the program, adjusted by the average income in a certain area.
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“The other thing we’re really focused on is making sure that communities that have a median income, that average, aren’t kicked out of the process simply because they want to put in affordable housing,” he said. “So we’re taking the average median income standard from 80% of the county average to 100%, to make communities that have all the nice amenities able to participate in the program.”
Cleaver said in a statement on the legislation last month, “By revamping and revitalizing the HOME Program—one of our greatest tools to expand the supply of affordable housing for working-class families—we can ensure that affordable housing and the American Dream of homeownership are once again attainable from the heartland to the coasts.”
Housing affordability has been a growing issue for some time, reaching a fever pitch just this year when the National Association of Realtors revealed the median age for a first-time home buyer is now a record 40 years old.
First-time home buyers made up just 21% of home sales this year, the lowest number since 1981, according to the National Association of Realtors.
When speaking with Fox News Digital on Tuesday, Flood also credited President Donald Trump with pushing the issue to the forefront of the national conversation.
“President Trump accelerated our success and our progress on this issue when he came out very forcefully earlier in the summer and said that housing affordability was one of the top goals of his administration,” he said.
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