House Passes Housing in the 21st Century Act in 390–9 Vote; Senate Action Up Next

Chalk up another victory for efforts to address the housing crisis. Last night, by a vote of 390 – 9, the House of Representatives passed the Housing in the 21st Century Act. As we have reported, this is the House’s comprehensive housing reform bill, which garnered overwhelming support in the House Financial Services Committee. 

This legislation could lead to significant savings in housing production, increase efficiency across several areas, and streamline or eliminate several onerous regulatory requirements.  One major proposal that did not make the final cut was an exemption of the Build America Buy America mandate for HOME funds.  There is resistance from the trades, especially the Steel Workers, to exempting any program from BABA.  That said, the industry is in talks with the SWA on ways to address the impediments to housing production caused by BABA.  We are also working with Members of Congress who would like to address this issue and will be meeting with HUD to see what can be done to expedite the waiver process. 

The next step toward passing a comprehensive housing reform bill rests with the Senate.  They had previously passed the ROAD to Housing Act as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, but since that legislation was stripped from the final version of the NDAA, the Senate will have to pass ROAD again to move forward.  The House and Senate will then meet to reach an agreement on a single housing regulatory reform bill. With the broad consensus on housing reform, we are hopeful that the two sides will produce a product we can celebrate. 

Here is a comparison of the two bills produced by our friends at the Bipartisan Policy Center.