Congress has enacted the most significant housing legislation in decades, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan measure aimed at tackling the nation's deepening affordability crisis. The bill passed the House 358-32 and the Senate 85-5, a rare show of unity that lawmakers hope will signal a new era of productive governance.
What the Law Does
The law overhauls federal housing programs by streamlining rental assistance, reforming rural housing initiatives, updating homelessness programs, and removing regulatory barriers that have long stifled construction. It also modernizes manufactured housing regulations, a move experts say could cut costs by up to 9 percent and allow for greater design flexibility, making homes more accessible for families priced out of traditional markets.
But the legislation's success hinges on execution. As former HUD secretaries Shaun Donovan (Obama administration) and Steve Preston (George W. Bush administration) wrote in a joint statement, “The full impact will depend entirely on what federal agencies, state governments, localities, and housing practitioners do with it. And the clock is already ticking.”
Implementation Challenges Ahead
The law provides new tools, but states and localities must update zoning codes, expand financing pathways, and dismantle local barriers that have stymied housing production. The manufactured housing provisions, for example, require parallel action at the state and local level to realize their potential. “Other countries have moved further, faster, in part because they have allowed the manufactured housing industry to innovate and scale,” the former secretaries noted. “The United States lags behind for a straightforward reason: thousands of state and local building codes have made it nearly impossible for manufactured housing to flourish.”
This law arrives amid ongoing political battles over housing policy. In a related development, California Governor Gavin Newsom recently vetoed a bipartisan housing bill, blaming the Trump administration's aversion to the state. Meanwhile, the housing bill became law without Trump's signature amid a standoff over voter ID legislation, underscoring the fragile nature of bipartisan deals.
Next Steps
Donovan and Preston emphasized that the law is just a starting point. “There are other important steps we need to take, including helping builders source much-needed talent by training people to go into the building trades,” they wrote. Success will be measured by the number of homes built, preserved, and brought within reach for American families.
Localities have already begun experimenting with innovative housing reforms. Federal action can accelerate that progress, but only if paired with implementation capacity. Experienced housing nonprofits can provide technical assistance and financial leverage to help communities succeed.
If the law leads to more housing and lower costs, it could serve as a model for further bipartisan cooperation. “More than that, it can be proof of something urgently needed: government, working across party lines, solving hard problems,” the former secretaries concluded.
Congress did its job. Now, the real work begins.
