Housing Policy Recommendations for the Biden/Harris Administration

ABSTRACT

Housing policy has taken on a heightened profile in recent years, and especially in the wake of COVID-19. Rents have increased faster than renters’ incomes, while Black homeownership has declined. And COVID-19 has hit renters, especially lower income ones, particularly hard, with many unable to pay their rent and facing possible eviction. Of course there are pressing needs that the Biden–Harris administration will need to address in its first 12 months concerning the pandemic, including the effective deployment of rental assistance, ensuring that well-designed mortgage forbearance is made available to all homeowners who would benefit from it, continuing and improving the eviction moratorium, and providing funding to high-capacity nonprofits and local governments to acquire distressed properties and preserve them for affordable housing. The High-Cost Cities Housing Forum (2020) has detailed many of these short-term policy needs. The focus here is on longer term, fundamental housing policy issues that, although brought more into the light by the pandemic, mostly preceded COVID-19.