White House rolls out measures aimed at lowering cost of housing, increasing supply

abcnews.go.com:

The White House has announced a series of measures that it said would reduce the cost and increase the supply of housing while bolstering protection for renters

The White House is taking steps aimed at increasing the the supply of affordable housing while also bolstering protections for renters.

The housing measures announced Thursday include providing communities with $85 million in funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reduce barriers to affordable housing, such as zoning restrictions that in some places have become a hurdle to increasing the supply and density of affordable housing. HUD would provide grants upwards of $10 million.

“HUD recognizes that communities have unique housing challenges and that’s why the resources announced today are not one-size-fits-all,” HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said in a statement. “Today, we are acting to increase the supply of affordable housing, which is crucial to lowering housing costs. We look forward to continuing this work in partnership with local communities.”

The White House also announced that it was forming an inter-agency task force to develop ways to fund efforts to convert more commercial buildings to residential housing, especially zero emissions and affordable units. Across the country, office-to-housing conversions are being pursued as a potential lifeline for struggling downtown business districts that emptied out during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The mismatch between the demand for housing and the inadequate supply of affordable and available homes is at the heart of today’s housing affordability crisis," Dennis Shea, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy, said in a statement.