Congress Democrats Push Spending Bill to Help With Affordable Housing

To increase housing supply and affordability for homebuyers, Congressional democrats are pushing a spending bill called ‘Build Back Better,’ which would allocate over $150 billion for affordable housing, says NPR. The bill would provide over $50 billion for new home construction to increase market supply and drive down prices.

The relief package comes in response to a 2 million home shortage calculated by economists who say that current housing supply is not adequate for the current U.S. population. Without Republican support, however, the spending bill could change or stall in the Senate. 

In their social spending bill, called Build Back Better, Democrats want to make the biggest investment in affordable housing in history - more than $150 billion.

The biggest problem facing the housing market is that there just aren't enough homes for people to buy or rent.

In the aftermath of the housing market collapse and financial crisis more than a decade ago, about half of home building companies went out of business. Year after year since then builders just did not build enough homes. So now economists say we're roughly 2 million homes short of what we need.

"Given the population, there are fewer homes available to rent or to own than we've had really at any time since World War Two," says Jim Parrott, who was an economic advisor for housing policy in the Obama White House.

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