Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive Congress member for New York, has introduced legislation aimed at establishing an ambitious social housing programme that would see millions of new homes being built with US government funding.
With Tina Smith, a Democratic senator for Minnesota, Ocasio-Cortez has introduced the Homes Act in the House of Representatives to address what they call a “housing crisis” that has left millions of low-income people unable to find rental accommodation they can afford. Smith has introduced the proposed legislation in the Senate.
If passed, it would provide federal funding for millions of new homes and apartments that would have to remain affordable by law.
The initiative comes against the backdrop of mounting concern that has seen soaring housing costs emerge as one of the salient campaign issues in the forthcoming presidential election.
Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has tried to address it by pledging $25,000 in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers – a proposal which critics say would drive up house prices.
In their joint legislation, Ocasio-Cortez and Smith propose setting up an authority within the the Department of Housing and Urban Development to acquire properties and provide homes with explicit tenant protections.
It would also set rents based on tenants’ incomes and mandate permanently affordable purchase prices.
The homes would be run by non-profit organisations, housing associations or cooperatives.
“For generations, the federal government’s approach to housing policy has been primarily focused on encouraging single-family homeownership and private investment in rental housing,” Ocasio-Cortez and Smith wrote in an editorial in the New York Times, which argues that the current system has led to America’s 44 million private tenants struggling to meet rental payments.
They blame high rents and home shortages on decades-old “restrictive zoning laws” and rising building costs, meaning not enough new housing has been built.
“There is another way: social housing,” they say. “Instead of treating real estate as a commodity, we can underwrite the construction of millions of homes and apartments that, by law, must remain affordable. Some would be rental units; others would offer Americans the opportunity to build equity.”
The pair argue that the model already exists in some European cities, including Vienna, as well as in some projects in Ocasio-Cortez’s native New York, and in St Paul in Smith’s home state.
Citing the New York complex of Co-op City in the Bronx as one template, they write: “[It] stands as not only one of the largest housing cooperatives in the world – with its own schools and power plant – but also the largest, naturally occurring retirement community in the country, a testament to its financial and social sustainability.”
They invoke research estimating that their proposal could build and preserve 1.25m new homes, including more than 850,000 for the lowest-income households.
“This is the federal government’s chance to invest in social housing and give millions of Americans a safe, comfortable and affordable place to call home – with the sense of security and dignity that come with it,” Ocasio-Cortez and Smith conclude.
