UPDATE: President Trump had been scheduled to sign the bill at noon Eastern time on June 24, but at 10:30 am he posted on Truth Social, “Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.” If he vetoes the bill within ten days, Congress will have the opportunity to override the veto. If he takes no further action, the measure will become law without his signature after ten days.  

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The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) welcomes Congress’s passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. As housing challenges continue to affect communities across the country, this legislation reflects meaningful bipartisan progress. It has now passed both the House and the Senate and President Trump is expected to sign it into law.

“This legislation marks an important step forward in addressing the nation’s housing affordability crisis,” stated David Lipsetz, HAC’s President and CEO. “HAC thanks Banking Committee Chair Scott (R-SC) and Ranking Member Warren (D-MA) and Financial Services Committee Chair Hill (R-AR) and Ranking Member Waters (D-CA) for their remarkable collaboration and persistence.”

HAC is particularly pleased that the final bill includes specific provisions of the Rural Housing Service (RHS) Reform Act.  Championed by Senators Rounds (R-SD) and Smith (D-MN), and Representatives Nunn (R-IA) and Cleaver (D-MO), this bicameral, bipartisan bill makes commonsense improvements to the country’s housing programs for rural Americans with lower incomes.  Its broad support among rural stakeholders was demonstrated when over 200 national and local organizations signed on to a letter circulated by HAC supporting the inclusion of the RHS Reform Act in the final package. 

“USDA’s housing programs work. By investing in both rental housing and homeownership, millions of rural families, seniors, and workers have helped thousands of small towns across the country to thrive. This legislation modernizes and permanently authorizes a range of single-family, multifamily, and rural capacity building programs that have proved effective for decades,” noted Lipsetz.  “Most important, today’s bill provides USDA’s Rural Housing Service (RHS) with new and improved tools to preserve the Department’s ‘Section 515’ multifamily portfolio.  Two-thirds of this precious stock of apartments are rented by families with elderly or disabled members, and the average household income is barely $18,000. All too often a 515 apartment is the only affordable rental option in town, which makes it even more tragic that we’ve lost tens of thousands of the units originally financed by the program. The RHS Reform Act provisions of the 21st Century Road to Housing Act provide real options for local housing stakeholders to access new sources of financing to preserve the remaining 380,000 units.”

“The 21st Century Road to Housing Act is an important step forward, but it won’t end our housing crisis,” cautioned Lipsetz.  “Significant work remains to ensure that all Americans have access to a safe and affordable home.  In particular, Congress must move quickly to level the playing field for rural housing markets, which are often less well-served by the housing finance system’s policy and programs than their urban and suburban counterparts.”

“First, Congress must revisit key elements of the RHS Reform Act did not make it into today’s bill,” Lipsetz added. “This includes expanding a successful USDA RHS Section 502 Direct Loan pilot program that helps Native Community Development Financial Institutions offer more homeownership opportunities to Native Americans. The current pilot enjoys broad bipartisan support and is designed to address some of the worst housing situations in the U.S.” 

“Second, bipartisan tax legislation is needed to fully include rural America in the housing benefits of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA),” Lipsetz continued.  “Like the rest of the affordable housing industry, HAC was pleased that the OBBA substantially expanded the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC).  But we were disappointed that the final package dropped a broadly-supported provision of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Act that designated rural places and Tribal lands ‘Difficult Development Areas,’ thus able to attract LIHTC equity investments at a level enjoyed by other parts of the country. Rural America needs Congress and the Administration to handle this unfinished business.”  

“Notably, developers seeking to rehab or develop new affordable homeownership units lack a LIHTC-type tax credit to spur supply,” observed Lipsetz.  “While far from alone in this, rural communities suffer disproportionately from the ‘value gap’ – the term coined to describe situations where it costs more to fix or build a home than it will appraise for.  The Neighborhood Homes Investment Act (NHIA) is a bipartisan, broadly supported federal tax credit that would help make such transactions ‘pencil out’ to the benefit of low- and moderate-income homeowners and prospective homebuyers in communities that are not well served by current law.”

“Finally,” Lipsetz emphasized, “today’s legislation won’t have an impact if the Administration does not allow rural families and small towns to access the funds in a timely manner that Congress has already provided for rural housing programs. Millions of dollars rural America desperately needs for housing and community development are sitting at Treasury, HUD and USDA.  HAC urges the Administration to quickly allocate those funds and accelerate the nation’s response to the housing crisis. If the Administration delays further and Congress wants to keep its commitment to rural communities, it will be necessary to strengthen the language in agencies’ annual appropriations to compel allocation of the funding.”