Housing

Note: This page is a reproduction of the Hillary for America policy proposal on housing. 

Skyrocketing rents are weighing heavily on working families, with a quarter of young renters paying more than half of their income on rents. Too many families with good credit still find the path to sustainable homeownership closed. And too many communities are in distress, with abandoned buildings and poverty cutting entire neighborhoods off from jobs, from commerce, and from hope. Hillary Clinton believes that we need housing policies that connect working families to economic opportunity.

As president, Hillary will:

  • Curb skyrocketing rental costs in areas of opportunity. Hillary will expand the supply of affordable rental housing by increasing incentives for new affordable housing developments. She’ll also work to ease the local barriers to building affordable housing in areas of economic opportunity.
  • Remove barriers to sustainable homeownership. Homeownership is about more than just owning a home: It’s about building wealth and putting roots down in a community with good schools, safe streets, and good jobs. Hillary believes every American deserves a fair shot at this opportunity, and she has a plan to make it happen:
    • Help responsible homeowners save for a down payment. Hillary’s plan will provide funding to match up to $10,000 in savings for working families to put towards a down payment on a first home.
    • Support counseling programs for the significant financial commitment of homeownership. Hillary will increase funding and broaden credit terms for housing-counseling programs that are shown to help borrowers become sustainable homeowners.
    • Update underwriting tools to reflect today’s job market. Hillary will push government agencies to use the new generation of credit-testing tools so they can better assess credit risk in today’s dynamic economy.
    • Clarify the rules of the road to expand access to home loans. Hillary will give every government agency that supports mortgage lending 90 days to present a plan to clarify their lending requirements. This way, good lenders will finally have the confidence to make loans to all sustainable borrowers, and bad ones will think twice before violating the rules.
    • Defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Hillary will defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and make sure that it has the independence and resources needed to be a strong, independent advocate for families across the country.
    • Enforce fair housing and fair lending laws. Hillary will make sure that the Department of Justice enforces fair lending and fair housing laws—working to make sure that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and all of the nation’s lenders meet their responsibility to provide lending in communities that have been historically underserved.
  • Connect housing support in high-poverty neighborhoods to economic opportunity. Hillary will couple housing-assistance programs with efforts to revitalize the economy in low-income communities. She’ll strengthen programs that give families a choice in where they live, instead of keeping affordable housing concentrated in high-poverty areas that lack opportunity. And she’ll work to tackle homelessness, particularly for at-risk populations like veterans and LGBT youth.
  • Revitalize communities being dragged down by physical decay. Hillary will provide local governments the resources and flexibility to make the scalable, multi-block investments needed for these communities to rehabilitate and rebuild.