Harris, HUD, announce $85 million to bolster affordable housing supply
The funding will go to 21 winners across rural communities and urban counties, with another $100 million in grants to come later this summer.

The White House announced this morning its latest step to address the affordable housing crisis: A new program designed to spot and eliminate barriers to ramping up the supply of reasonably priced homes.
The Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing program—or PRO Housing for short—will administer $85 million in grant funding to communities actively taking steps and demonstrating progress to address unnecessary local burdens to housing production.
The announcement comes as housing prices rose by 0.4 percent in May, according to the latest Consumer Price Index from the Labor Department—the fourth consecutive month this sector of the economy saw an increase despite cooling inflation in other areas and an empirical indication of the strain the housing markets finds itself under. It also comes as voters across geography and ideology cited housing affordability as a top concern in recent polling.
Acting Housing and Urban Development Secretary Adrianne Todman told me that the program will cover increasing the supply of apartments in addition to homes.
“The idea is that by opening up housing opportunities across the country, through these grants removing barriers, we’re going to be building more apartments to rent and bringing down costs of those apartments.”
Vice President Kamala Harris said the program is part of the administration’s ongoing focus on kitchen-table issues.
“We are cracking down on corporate landlords who break antitrust laws and keep rents high. We are working to ban rental junk fees that cost renters hundreds of dollars a month—for example, unnecessary fees for mail forwarding or to pay rent online,” she told reporters on a press call on Tuesday. “And we have helped nearly 700,000 homeowners save close to $1,000 a year by reducing the cost of mortgage insurance. Since taking office, we have made progress in lowering housing costs. And there is more work to do. President Biden and I will continue to fight to help more Americans afford to pay their rent and be able to afford to buy a home.”
A senior administration official added that the White House expects the Federal Trade Commission to release a final rule later this year regarding so-called junk fees, which the administration believes would impact the rental housing market.
“The vice president talked about some of them—so-called mail-sorting fees. There are reports of something called a January fee, just because the year turns to the month of January, and there's a fee for that. And in addition to it just being unfair for renters who are already struggling with high rental costs,” the official told me. “We know that it really impacts their ability to effectively comparison shop when they're looking for an apartment. So we think this rule, if and when it’s finalized, will be really helpful in helping make renters lower costs and help them make better choices.”
The program funding will be awarded to 21 winners from jurisdictions ranging from under 5,000 residents in a rural community to millions of people across an urban county.
HUD says the grant demand was intense: For every $1 available, it received requests exceeding $13. Common barriers listed in applications included the high cost of land and development, underutilized vacant land and property, aging housing stock, inadequate infrastructure, displacement pressures, risks of extreme weather or environment hazards and outdated land-use and permitting requirements.
In addition to the grant funding, winners will be invited to participate in a technical assistance cohort to encourage communities to learn from each other and support the awards’ implementation. Similar assistance will be offered to communities excluded from the awardees.
According to Vice President Harris, HUD will award an additional $100 million in grants later this summer. A senior administration official said the initial $85 million fund was enacted in the 2023 HUD budget; the next $100 million was approved in the 2024 HUD budget.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced a series of new housing actions on Monday in Minneapolis, including a $100 million Treasury program for affordable housing, providing interest rate predictability for housing finance agencies, urging Federal Home Loan Banks to increase housing program spending, a guide for using recovery funds for housing construction, and an update to the Capital Magnet Fund for more flexibility in financing affordable housing.
Yellen also participated in a roundtable conversation with Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and housing stakeholders.
In Congress, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the housing industry, led the introduction of a comprehensive legislative package earlier this year that would represent the largest and most comprehensive investment in fair and affordable housing in US history.
She told me last month that she and her colleagues are focused on advancing policies to lower housing costs.
“We want to make sure that everybody who’s eligible for a voucher is able to get one. We want to make sure that we get rid of discrimination in housing and we have fair housing,” she said. “So we're working very, very hard. The president keeps a close eye. He’s in constant contact with the feds about it. And I’m hopeful that the indicators will be such that in the near future, we’ll be able to see the [Federal Reserve] bring down the interest rates.”
But with Republicans in control of the House and intent on slashing funding for domestic programs, it’s hard to see a path toward meaningful policy action to support the Biden administration’s work. (The House is expected to consider its version of the funding bill for HUD during the week of July 29, the final week before Congress’s month-long summer recess.)
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President Biden’s 2025 budget asks Congress for a historic $258 billion-plus in housing investments, including $20 billion in funding to eliminate barriers to housing further, spur development and encourage innovative housing solutions. The president’s budget also requests $100 million in additional PRO Housing grants.
For now, Todman told reporters that HUD, the agency she now leads after serving as former Secretary Marcia Fudge’s top deputy until late March, has additional resources beyond the billions dedicated to the PRO Housing program.
“This is not at all the only money that we have to address housing. We have billions of dollars here to help build more affordable housing. Our goal today, and the administration’s goal, is that that money gets used in places freely, in places where there may be restrictions to building affordable housing, in places where they may need a little bit more money to build housing,”
she said. “This very brand new and very unique first-of-its-kind program is meant to clear the path for more affordable housing and the rest of our money can come in and build the housing that Americans need.”