The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act was passed yesterday in the Senate by a vote of 89-10. It was shepherded by a bipartisan group led by South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
The AIA supports the bill aimed at boosting affordable housing supply nationwide and has lobbied for it since it was introduced in 2025. Next, the bill will be voted on in the House.
Matt Toddy, on AIA’s government affairs committee, told AN, “AIA leaders commend the Senate’s bipartisan work on the housing bill championed by AIA since Evelyn Lee’s presidency and carried forward by 2026 AIA president Illya Azaroff.”
“While supporting the bill, we urge a Build America Buy America exemption for HUD to avoid conflicts with Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects,” Toddy added. “AIA will continue to advocate for the exemption as the bill returns to the House.”
The bill has been called the largest housing affordability package the Senate has passed in decades. It has White House support: On March 2, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) stated it “strongly supports” the bill’s passage.
“This landmark, bipartisan legislation represents significant advances in federal housing policy to further the goals of expanding housing supply and affordability,” the OMB stated.
“By streamlining regulations,” OMB continued, “modernizing finance options, and promoting innovative construction methods, this bill will lower housing costs for families, seniors, and veterans across the country.”
As it stands, the bill has three goals: To ease zoning restrictions to fast track housing production, increase the supply of manufactured homes, and ban institutional investors (hedge funds, private equity firms) from buying single-family homes.
President Trump announced plans to curtail institutional investors in the single-family housing market in January, after slashing federal housing subsidies. Section 901 of the bill (Homes Are For People, Not Corporations Act) would cap the amount of homes institutional investors can own at 350.
In total the bill has 40 provisions. The provisions include the RESIDE Act, Housing Supply Expansion Act, Rural Housing Service Reform Act, Incentivizing Local Solutions to Homelessness Act, Reforming Disaster Recovery Act, Housing Affordability Act, and many others. The bill would strengthen the Community Development Block Grant and HOME programs to accelerate reconstruction in disaster-stricken communities.
Other provisions would remove “outdated chassis requirements,” Senator Warren said on the Senate floor, “bringing down the cost of a new unit by up to $10,000.” Section 201 of the bill lifts the cap on the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program and codifies tenant protections.
Today, RAD allows for the conversion of Section 9 public housing into long term Section 8 contracts. With this provision the amount of public housing units eligible for conversion under RAD would rise from 455,000 units, a number established in 2018, to a higher, albeit undisclosed amount.
Bipartisanship is rare these days, to put it lightly. Emphasizing the bill’s importance, Senator Warren said on the Senate floor yesterday, “An overwhelming majority of Americans across party lines want to stop private equity from snapping up single family homes. This bill does exactly that.”
→ Continue reading at The Architect's Newspaper
