On Wednesday, U.S. Senators Todd Young (R-Ind.), Angus King (I-Maine), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), John Kennedy (R-La.), and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) reintroduced the Task Force on the Impact of the Affordable Housing Crisis Act, which aims to better understand and respond to America’s housing affordability crisis by creating a bipartisan housing task force.
The task force would evaluate and quantify the impact of housing costs on other government programs, and provide recommendations to Congress on how to increase affordable housing options in order to improve life outcomes.
Young
“I’ve seen firsthand in Indiana how a lack of affordable housing has negative and lasting consequences. The inability to access safe and affordable homes leaves Hoosier families with fewer dollars to spend on important expenses like health care and groceries, and the pandemic has only exacerbated this problem,” Sen. Young said. “Our bipartisan bill would assemble a group of experts to better understand the housing affordability crisis so that we might take legislative action to end the cycle of poverty for millions of struggling Americans while decreasing overall taxpayer expenditures.”
Specifically, the task force will:
- Evaluate and quantify the impact that a lack of affordable housing has on other areas of life and life outcomes for individuals living in the United States, including education, employment, income level, health, nutrition, access to transportation, and poverty level in the neighborhood in which individuals live, regional economic growth, and neighborhood and rural community stability and revitalization.
- Evaluate and quantify the costs incurred by other federal, state, and local programs due to a lack of affordable housing.
- Make recommendations to Congress on how to use affordable housing to improve the effectiveness of other federal programs and improve life outcomes for individuals living in the United States.
When the Task Force on the Impact of the Affordable Housing Crisis Act was first introduced in 2019, it earned the support of over 70 organizations. Click here to see a full list of supporters.
Click here to read the full bill text.