Biden Administration Steps Forward for Housing Supply
On May 16th, the White House released a plan to address the nation’s critical housing supply shortage. This plan—which included both executive actions as well as legislative asks of Congress—details plans to move forward on a wide-ranging set of federal levers to spur the construction of new supply. The plan’s “all of government” approach implicates a variety of federal agencies and departments as well as state and local governments and the private sector.
The details of the White House’s supply plan touch on everything from zoning to accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to financing to manufactured homes. This range is critical given the myriad facets of the housing supply challenge. The White House’s plan also directly incorporates several pillars of the Terner Center’s “Building a Better Ladder of Housing Opportunity” federal policy framework; expanding and harmonizing housing supply-oriented resources and tools and strengthening incentives and accountability, both for localities (e.g., as it relates to local policies and practices that hamper housing production) and for private market actors (e.g., to encourage production of a diversity of housing types) are key aspects of the White House’s plan. The 2021 roadmap from the Terner Center laid out a broad framework for ways that the federal government can deploy financial resources and regulatory authority in order to expand the range of rental and homeownership options and make good on the 1949 Housing Act’s promise of “safe and affordable housing for all.”