Congress passed a historic housing bill, but San Diego advocates say it won’t do enough

A bipartisan bill aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing nationwide passed Congress in what some are calling the biggest federal housing legislation in decades, but local advocates say while it’s helpful, it won’t do enough.

“I’ll be honest, it’s not the big home run we need right now,” said Stephen Russell, CEO of the San Diego Housing Federation. “But there’s enough individual things in there that every state, every congressional district can probably say, ‘Hey, there’s like three things in here that are really valuable for us.’”

The pace of housing construction has increased in San Diego, but it is still falling short of demand in a region where affordability remains a struggle and apartment vacancies are higher than they’ve been in a quarter century. The average monthly cost of a home has almost doubled since 2020 nationally and in San Diego, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. 

By one estimate, San Diego County is short almost 130,000 affordable homes.

President Donald Trump has refused to sign the 21st Century Road to Housing Act until Congress passes his version of the SAVE America Act. That legislation would require proof of citizenship and voter IDs in federal elections. It would also prohibit mail-in ballots without excuses like illness or military service.

The housing bill could become law without the president’s signature if he takes no action on it by Friday, July 10. It passed with veto-proof two-thirds margins in both chambers of Congress, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said in a press conference Tuesday that he was optimistic it would become law and that he has urged the president to sign it.

The wide-ranging housing bill doesn’t put more federal funding directly into affordable housing. Instead, it tries to make it easier to build and finance affordable housing while making it more difficult for large institutional investors to buy single family homes. 

There are several provisions that could make a difference in California: 

• The bill would allow certain affordable housing projects to quickly pass National Environmental Policy Act requirements, which require builders to conduct complex evaluations on the environmental impact of proposed developments.
• Another provision would raise the public welfare investment cap, which is a limit on how much banks can invest in affordable housing. A study by the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition suggests this could lead to billions invested in affordable housing, in particular from small- and medium-sized banks that were close to the previous spending cap. 
• It would loosen regulations on mobile homes to no longer require a permanent steel chassis and to permit a greater range of designs — a key source of affordable housing in rural areas. 
• It would authorize the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program for three years and make it easier to use grants for affordable housing. That means if a disaster hits San Diego, Congress wouldn’t have to draft legislation to distribute funds.
• The bill would also make it easier to build housing developments with a single staircase, which experts say opens the market for smaller developers to build smaller housing complexes. Those developers were often priced out by the larger developments required to put in two straircases. 

“This will be a tremendous achievement by Congress,” said Matt Schwartz, the president and CEO of the California Housing Partnership, a nonprofit that works to create affordable homes. “Having said that, the impacts in California will not be life-changing for most people. It will not be that visible to most low-income renters or advocates, except over time.”