ECONOMY/HOMELESSNESS/HOUSING/JOBS/TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS: “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows…
For many Americans, access to affordable housing is becoming far too difficult. Rising housing costs are forcing families to dedicate larger shares of their monthly incomes to housing. In 2017, approximately 37 million renter and owner households spent more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing, with more than 18 million spending more than half of their incomes on housing. Between 2001 and 2017, the number of renter households allocating more than half of their incomes toward rent increased by nearly 45 percent. These rising costs are leaving families with fewer resources for necessities such as food, healthcare, clothing, education, and transportation, negatively affecting their quality of life and hindering their access to economic opportunity.
Driving the rise in housing costs is a lack of housing supply to meet demand. Federal, State, local, and tribal governments impose a multitude of regulatory barriers — laws, regulations, and administrative practices — that hinder the development of housing… These regulatory barriers increase the costs associated with development, and, as a result, drive down the supply of affordable housing. They are the leading factor in the growth of housing prices across metropolitan areas in the United States. Many of the markets with the most severe shortages in affordable housing contend with the most restrictive State and local regulatory barriers to development.
These regulatory barriers impede our Nation’s economic growth. Hardworking American families struggle to live in markets where there is an insufficient supply of housing — even in markets generating a significant number of jobs. One recent study suggests that certain regulatory restrictions on housing supply have forced workers to live far away from high-productivity areas with the best available jobs, creating a geographic misallocation of labor between cities that may have decreased the annual economic growth rate in the United States by 36 percent between 1964 and 2009.
Low- and middle-income Americans are often hit the hardest by regulatory barriers to housing development. High housing costs place strains on household budgets, limit educational opportunities, impair workforce mobility, slow job creation, and increase financial risks. Furthermore, studies have consistently identified high housing prices as a primary determinant of homelessness, and research has directly linked more stringent housing market regulation to higher homelessness rates.
To help these populations, in 2018, the Federal Government invested more than $46 billion in rental assistance programs for low-income families — much of which grows at approximately 3 percent per annum while assisting a fixed number of households. The Federal Government provides additional housing support through the tax code, with over $9.1 billion in tax expenditures in Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) to developers of low-income housing. Generally, these Federal tax dollars are focused disproportionately on areas with high-cost and highly regulated housing markets.
But to improve housing affordability in a truly sustainable manner, we need innovative solutions — not simply increases in spending and subsidies for Federal housing. These solutions must address the regulatory barriers that are inhibiting the development of housing. If we fail to act, Federal subsidies will only continue to mask the true cost of these onerous regulatory barriers, and, as a result, many Americans will not be able to access the opportunities they deserve…
It shall be the policy of my Administration to work with Federal, State, local, tribal, and private sector leaders to address, reduce, and remove the multitude of overly burdensome regulatory barriers that artificially raise the cost of housing development and help to cause the lack of housing supply. Increasing the supply of housing by removing overly burdensome regulatory barriers will reduce housing costs, boost economic growth, and provide more Americans with opportunities for economic mobility. In addition, it will strengthen American communities and the quality of services offered in them by allowing hardworking Americans to live in or near the communities they serve…
There is hereby established a White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing (Council).”
-Donald Trump, “Executive Order Establishing a White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing,” whitehouse.gov, June 25, 2019
[Note: Read the full Executive Order signed by Donald Trump.]