Housing

A home shouldn't
be a luxury.

Wall Street turned your neighborhood into an investment portfolio. Corporate landlords buy up single-family homes. Rents are up 30%, 40%, 50% in cities across the country. This is a policy failure - and it has a policy solution.

What's Happening Now

The numbers.

The housing crisis is not an accident. It's the predictable result of decades of policy choices.

50%

of renters are "cost-burdened" - spending more than 30% of income on housing

580K

Americans are homeless on any given night - the highest recorded number in U.S. history

3M+

single-family homes owned by institutional investors, removing them from first-time buyers

40%

Average rent increase since 2020 - while wages grew 16%

Why This Happened

The housing crisis was built, not inevitable.

For decades, federal housing policy has prioritized homeowner wealth accumulation over housing access. Exclusionary zoning - local rules that prohibit apartments near jobs and transit - is illegal under fair housing law but widely practiced. Federal inaction enabled it.

Wall Street's entry into single-family rentals after 2008 was accelerated by federal incentives. Institutions like Invitation Homes and Blackstone received favorable tax treatment to buy up distressed properties - and then extract maximum rent from the families who live there.

Project 2025 made it worse: it proposed eliminating fair housing enforcement, gutting the Community Development Block Grant program, and stripping HUD of the authority to require localities to affirmatively further fair housing. The result was predictable: more segregation, higher rents, fewer options.

The fix is not complicated. It requires political will: build more housing, protect existing tenants, tax speculation, and invest public funds in housing as infrastructure - not as an investment vehicle for the wealthy.

What Project 2025 Did to Housing

● Proposed eliminating the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule - the primary tool for dismantling segregation
● Cut Community Development Block Grants - the primary federal investment in affordable housing in lower-income communities
● Weakened fair lending enforcement at HUD and CFPB, enabling discriminatory mortgage practices
● Proposed converting HUD rental assistance to block grants - cutting housing vouchers for 5 million families
● Ended the Housing First policy framework - replacing evidence-based homelessness interventions with punitive approaches

The Plan

What Project 2029 proposes.

Based on Chapter 15 (HUD) of Project 2029. Specific legislation. Real timelines. Constitutional authority for every proposal.

Social Housing Development Authority

Build non-speculative housing at scale - permanently affordable

Establish a federal Social Housing Development Authority (SHDA) modeled on Vienna's successful public housing model. The SHDA would develop mixed-income, permanently affordable housing with resident governance rights. Funded by a $50B bond issuance over 10 years. Housing built through SHDA would be deed-restricted to remain affordable permanently - removing it from the speculative market entirely.

Legal Authority: Housing Act of 1949; Article I, Section 8 spending power

Housing First Act

End homelessness through housing, not punishment

Restore and codify the Housing First approach to homelessness - proven by research to reduce homelessness and save money. Require all HUD-funded homelessness programs to use Housing First models. Provide $10B over 5 years for supportive housing with wraparound services. Prohibit cities that receive federal transportation or community development funds from criminalizing homelessness (sleeping, camping ordinances).

Legal Authority: 42 U.S.C. § 11301 (McKinney-Vento); Supremacy Clause; Grants power

Anti-Speculation and Anti-Monopoly Measures

Get Wall Street out of your neighborhood

Impose a 50% federal tax on profits from single-family home sales by institutional investors (entities owning 10+ homes). Require institutional investors in single-family rentals to offer right of first refusal to existing tenants at appraised value. Limit institutional ownership of single-family homes in any single metropolitan area to no more than 2% of total housing stock. Direct FTC and DOJ to aggressively investigate algorithmic rent-setting software (like RealPage) as anticompetitive collusion.

Legal Authority: Article I, Section 8; Internal Revenue Code; Sherman Antitrust Act (15 U.S.C. § 1)

Zoning Reform Incentives

Build more housing where people want to live

Create a $25B Zoning Reform Grant Program - conditioned on localities legalizing multifamily housing near transit stations, job centers, and schools. Withhold HUD community development grants from jurisdictions that maintain exclusionary zoning in areas of high housing demand. Require states receiving federal transportation funding to mandate transit-oriented development within a half-mile of any federally funded transit stop.

Legal Authority: Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. § 3601); South Dakota v. Dole; Spending Clause

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (Restored and Strengthened)

Enforce the Fair Housing Act as written

Restore AFFH requirements via executive order on Day One. Introduce legislation to codify AFFH requirements into statute so they cannot be undone by executive action. Require all localities receiving HUD funds to submit meaningful fair housing plans with measurable goals, timelines, and enforcement mechanisms. Establish a Fair Housing Enforcement Division with 500 new investigators and a $2B annual budget.

Legal Authority: Fair Housing Act § 808; Texas Dept. of Housing v. Inclusive Communities Project (2015)

Tenant Bill of Rights

Protection from exploitation - in every rental in America

Establish federal minimum tenant protections: just-cause eviction requirements (no eviction without documented cause), 90-day notice for rent increases over 5%, right to counsel in eviction proceedings, prohibition on application fees exceeding $30, and prohibition on criminal background screening that disproportionately excludes minority renters. Condition federal housing assistance on state adoption of these minimum standards.

Legal Authority: 42 U.S.C. § 1437f; Article I spending power; Due Process Clause (5th Amendment)

Down Payment Assistance for First-Generation Homebuyers

Close the racial wealth gap through ownership access

Provide up to $25,000 in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers who are also first-generation homebuyers (whose parents did not own a home). Funded at $10B per year through the appropriations process. Designed specifically to address the racial wealth gap created by decades of redlining and discriminatory mortgage practices. Income-limited to households below 150% of area median income.

Legal Authority: Fair Housing Act; 42 U.S.C. § 3608; Appropriations power

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