President Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” Seeks to Takes-On the Affordable Housing Crisis in this Country

President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan is the current President’s first effort at addressing the affordable housing crisis in this county. This version of the bill, known as the American Rescue Plan (“ARP”), is very unlikely to pass, but it does provide some insights into how the new President aims to address the matter.
The problem, as the administration sees it, is multi-layered: (1) there is a shortage of lower prices homes on the market; (2) the is a shortage of low-cost rental property available; and (3) the cost of purchasing homes has skyrocketed over the last year as a result of the housing shortage. To combat that, the ARP would invest $213 billion to retrofit over 2 million housing units for low-to-middle-income families.
Moreover, the ARP seeks to offer approximately $20 billion in tax credits over the following 5 years to people who renovate properties in struggling neighborhoods; though this is not an entirely new are (Economic Opportunity Zones were widely criticized as a tax shelter for the wealthy that failed to accomplish its express purpose).
Additionally, the ARP attempts to do away with problematic zoning policies that hinder the development of new homes by creating a grant program to provide financial assistance to areas that remove barriers to construction (these restrictions typically take the form of minimum lot sizes and failing to permit apartments from being built in certain areas).
Finally, the ARP seeks to invest $40 billion on the nation’s public housing; enabling the state to modernize current public housing projects. Moreover, part of the $40 billion earmarked for this project would provide tax credits, grants, and rental assistance to make rentals more affordable to the public at large.
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