Federal lawmakers ‘finally’ taking housing concerns seriously 

Last month, President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law — a piece of legislation most housing advocates described as a win for the industry, and part of a broader push at the federal level to address housing concerns that have been mounting for years.

Since housing is typically addressed at the local level, supply and affordability crunches haven't received much attention from federal lawmakers until recently, Up for Growth Policy Director David Garcia explained during a virtual panel on federal housing policy hosted by the Center for California Real Estate on Aug. 12.

"I'm heartened and encouraged that we have a lot of folks who are actually taking this seriously, finally," Garcia said.

"I've never seen such a focus by policymakers on solutions to the crisis," added Manufactured Housing Institute CEO Lesli Gooch. "It's our job to make sure that those solutions will actually have the impact that we're seeking."

Legislative progress on housing

LIHTC expansions: Trump's tax and spending bill included Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) provisions that will expand the program's availability — something housing advocates have encouraged for years — and are expected to create 3 million new homes in 10 years, Garcia said. "That's going to be really helpful for the affordable housing industry."

A bipartisan push for local support: Panelists were also encouraged by the Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act of 2025, a bipartisan housing package advanced by the Senate Banking Committee last month.

While the bill isn't "the silver bullet to solve all of the issues we're talking about," Garcia said, "collectively, it's a pretty big deal." And its existence is "a huge indicator of how serious lawmakers are taking the problem — especially because it is so bipartisan, and nothing else is bipartisan right now," he added. 

If passed, the bill would provide support for leaders at the local level to create their own zoning and regulatory reform solutions, develop incentives for cities to build more housing and introduce federal requirement reforms for projects that use federal funds, Garcia explained.

A key code revision: The ROAD to Housing Act would also introduce new policies and update the 50-year federal building code to pave the way for more cost-effective manufactured homes.

Revising the federal building code "is something that the industry really believes is necessary to really address entry-level homebuyers," Gooch said. But doing so would require collaboration at the state and local levels to ensure alignment with titling and licensing requirements.

"That will take some time, but we believe that's a real housing supply opportunity — and one that needs to be implemented right away," Gooch added.

Where the US is heading in the wrong direction

A dwindling supply of skilled workers: The current skilled labor shortage — which will intensify amid immigration enforcement and a drop in migrants coming to the U.S., Garcia predicted — costs about $10.8 billion per year in construction delays, impacting an estimated 19,000 new homes annually, according to a June study from the Home Builders Institute and the National Association of Home Builders.

To address this shortage, the attitude toward skilled labor needs to change, Gooch argued. "We need to start focusing on vocational education," she said. "We need to start focusing on making it cool to do things with your hands and to build again."

The rising cost of construction materials: The cost of building materials, which are increasing in response to the Trump administration's new tariffs, add further strain and appear to be slowing the pace of construction.

"A lot of the actions we're seeing at the federal level today are actually making costs a lot higher, making materials and goods and services much more expensive — in turn, making it harder to build housing overall," Garcia said.

Drop in SNAP, Medicaid benefits: While the OBBBA expands the LIHTC program, it "will also strip a lot of people with the lowest incomes of the assistance they rely on to help make ends meet through SNAP or through Medicaid assistance," said Kim Johnson, senior director of policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The bottom 10% of earners could lose about $1,600 per year as a result of this shift, she added.

"That's going to make it harder for them to afford the cost of rent."