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A thread on the Biden Admin’s plans to address the #housing crisis: https://www.hud.gov/press/speeches_remarks_statements/Remarks_20210128
In general, the most important way to help renters afford stable housing during #COVID & beyond is to make housing vouchers available to more low-income people & ultimately to all that need them. https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/policy-basics-the-housing-choice-voucher-program
To help renters keep a roof over their heads through #COVID & the economic downturn, policymakers should:
provide emergency, short-term rental assistance
provide sizable number of new vouchers
extend the federal moratorium on evictions
provide emergency, short-term rental assistance provide sizable number of new vouchers extend the federal moratorium on evictions
#COVID has exposed many more people to #housing insecurity: 1 in 5 renters reported this month that they weren’t caught up on rent. These problems are heavily concentrated among people with incomes under the #poverty line & POC. https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/tracking-the-covid-19-recessions-effects-on-food-housing-and
We know what works. Rigorous research shows that #housing vouchers sharply reduce homelessness, housing instability, & overcrowding. https://www.cbpp.org/housing-vouchers-work
Providing #housing vouchers to all who need them would *do more than any available option* to reduce homelessness, housing instability, & overcrowding. It would also significantly reduce #poverty & racial inequity.
And vouchers could quickly help families facing urgent needs, since state and local agencies around the country already run effective programs and could rapidly scale up.
To be sure, more vouchers alone won’t fully address the nation’s #housing needs. Especially in tight housing markets where housing supply is inadequate, policymakers should ease regulatory barriers to building homes & subsidize more affordable housing construction.
But those other policies aren’t enough to make #housing affordable to families with the lowest incomes. Vouchers are by far the best way to accomplish that goal. Policymakers should enact legislation phasing in a universal #housing voucher program. End of thread.
