Washington, DC – President Biden announced a final framework on the “Build Back Better Act,” moving Congress one step closer to enacting the legislation. The $1.75 trillion economic recovery package – negotiated down from $3.5 trillion – includes $150 billion in affordable housing investments. Seventy percent of the investments are deeply targeted in the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s (NLIHC’s) HoUSed Campaign’s top priorities: rental assistance, public housing, and the national Housing Trust Fund.
The targeted and essential investments in this bill will mean new, affordable, and stable homes for hundreds of thousands of the country’s lowest-income people and will preserve and improve up to 1 million affordable homes. The bill includes $25 billion in new rental assistance for hundreds of thousands of households; $65 billion to preserve our nation’s public housing infrastructure; and $15 billion for the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) to build and preserve over 150,000 homes affordable to extremely low-income households.
“This would be the most significant single investment in quality, stable, affordable homes for the country’s lowest-income people in history,” said NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel. “These historic investments would not have been possible without the tremendous leadership and work of Chairwoman Maxine Waters, Chairman Sherrod Brown, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, Representatives Ritchie Torres and Pramila Jayapal, and many others, all of whom never stopped fighting to get and keep the lowest-income people housed. These investments would also not have been possible without the leadership and commitment of President Biden.”
“We are one step closer to achieving historic housing investments and keeping the country’s lowest-income people affordably housed, but we’re not done yet. We’re urging all members of congress to enact this legislation as soon as possible” said Ms. Yentel.
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