NOW PLAYING
Congress is on the verge of passing a bipartisan housing package after months of often tense negotiations between House and Senate Republicans, a significant achievement that lawmakers in both parties are eager to tout back home.
The bill, titled the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, would roll back some permitting regulations and limit corporations from buying up single-family homes, among other things.
It’s the first big push in decades to change regulations and address problems that have limited the nation’s housing supply and led to high costs of homeownership and renting nationwide.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) have been the bipartisan duo driving the bill’s progress in the Senate, along with their House counterparts, Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).
“America is in a full-blown housing crisis. Across this country, home prices are sky-high, rent is through the roof, and the median age of a first-time homebuyer is now at an all-time high,” Warren said last week as the bill hit the Senate floor. “But for too long, the federal government has been asleep at the switch, and that changes today.”
In a year where Congress has been focused on shutdowns and there has been little progress in legislating, the housing bill stands out as a way for members of both parties to declare victory.
Warren said the bill will be the biggest housing bill to pass Congress in three decades assuming it reaches President Trump’s desk.
Here’s what the bill would do
There are more than 45 different provisions in the bill, including new programs to help communities find more places to build housing.
The bill also would provide grants and loans for people to rebuild aging homes, and encourage the development of vacant or abandoned buildings into housing.
It also expands the definition of manufactured housing so communities can build more of those homes.
One significant provision in the bill would create federal incentives for local governments to build more housing by tying federal grants to housing construction. Another would streamline the process for environmental reviews, which can delay affordable housing construction.
The bill will also restrict large investors from buying new single-family homes, an issue that Republicans in the House and Senate battled over.
“There’s some regulatory relief in there, but second, stopping the big private equity guys from buying homes, which is driving prices up and taking away some of the supply, is another benefit for homeowners across the country, including Montana,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mt.), who is retiring, told reporters Thursday.
Outsiders who have been pushing for Congress to prioritize building more housing see the package as a win.
“For years the pro-housing movement has really tried to shift the question from how do we help people afford homes to how do we solve the underlying problem of why homes are so expensive in the first place,” said Baillee Brown, head of government affairs at Inclusive Abundance, a nonprofit advocating for increasing housing supply.
What’s not in the bill
What the bill does not contain is significant new government funding for housing.
Warren and other Democrats have been pushing for years for legislation that actually allots federal money to affordable housing programs, but this package does not do that, although further full-year spending bills still could.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said the bill is an important first step in addressing housing, though he acknowledged it will not solve the problems he sees in his state.
“I hope that this means we can do more impactful housing policy together,” Murphy said. “I just don’t want to overhype the significance of the bill.”
“It will be marginally helpful in my state, but it’s no new real dollars. It doesn’t unlock a lot of our permitting and zoning problems,” said Murphy, adding “there’s a lot more we have to do.”
Who opposed the bill
Only 8 senators, all Republicans, voted against moving the bill forward on Thursday.
Sen. Alan Armstrong (R-Okla.) told The Hill that he voted “no” knowing his vote wouldn’t tank the bill. He wants to push for more in-depth permitting reform and not simply waiving the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which this bill allows for housing construction.
“Rather than actually tackling it, and you know, really fixing the problem, it just waives NEPA for housing,” Armstrong said of the bill. “And so if we start doing that for every, you know, pet project, and we don’t actually solve the permitting problem, then we just get a bunch of one-off pieces like that.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fl.) said he voted no because housing is “a local issue” and he, too, wants to tackle larger problems, like interest rates and local governance, that he sees as the root cause of high housing costs.
“If we want to reduce housing costs, we would balance a budget and get interest rates down,” Scott said. “Driving interest rates down through balancing the budget and having local governments do a better job, that’s what’s going to drive housing costs down.”
The Senate will take a final vote on the housing package Monday night, and the House will vote on it later in the week.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Chris Murphy Elizabeth Warren French Hill Maxine Waters Rick Scott Steve Daines Tim ScottCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Comments: Link copiedMore Senate News
See All
Media Dem senators call on FCC to pause Paramount-Warner Bros deal on national security grounds by Sophie Brams 1 day ago Media / 1 day ago 
