March 31, 2022

The Biden administration’s $1.6 trillion discretionary spending request for 2023 includes $71.9 billion for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), approximately $11.6 billion more than this year’s stopgap funding measure. If approved, the budget would include $35.0 billion for the Housing Supply Fund and $32.1 billion to housing vouchers to support 200,000 additional households, and homeless assistance grants would be increased by $576 million to $3.6 billion. Lawmakers will negotiate a final budget before October 1, the start of the new fiscal year. 

As prospective homebuyers struggle to navigate a real estate market with price increases and intense competition, they now face rising mortgage rates that add another affordability barrier. The current rate is the highest homebuyers have seen since March 2019. “Since the beginning of the year, about 7.9 million households have already been priced out due to higher mortgage rates,” said Nadia Evangelou, senior economist and director of forecasting for the National Association of Realtors.  

New York passed a law last year to help developers convert vacant New York City hotels into housing for people experiencing homelessness. Although nonprofits have expressed interest, the law did not account for zoning and building code rules that make conversions too costly and time consuming, leaving the $100 million set aside for the program unspent. Lawmakers are hoping to fix the law’s flaws by increasing funding and easing city and state regulations for conversions.  

Colorado mountain towns are exploring affordable housing projects that address climate action goals while keeping housing truly affordable though lower utility bills. The success of Colorado’s first net-zero affordable housing project in a mountain town, Basalt Vista, has encouraged many more projects to break ground this year. “It’s true affordability when you can control the cost. The sun is the same price as it will be in 100 years,” said Gail Schwartz, president of Habitat for Humanity.