March promises to be a crucial month for affordable housing. That’s when housing advocates anticipate the Senate may vote on a bill that could usher in the largest investment in affordable homes in decades. On January 31, the House passed a tax package containing two key Housing Credit provisions by an overwhelming 357-70 vote. The bill, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 (H.R. 7024) contained two key provisions that would bolster the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (Housing Credit), which is responsible for financing nearly all affordable housing development in the United States.

In this new series, experts from Enterprise combine research, data and stories that demonstrate the impact of specific policy areas on racial disparities in both housing and non-housing outcomes.

The share of renters wrestling with unaffordable housing continues to rise, with just under half of all renter households now spending more than 30 percent of their monthly gross income on housing costs, recent data show. While the scale of the affordability crisis for renters is well known, less understood is how this burden has shifted over time both by race and geography. Since 2019, households of color – long disproportionately impacted by affordability challenges – experienced greater increases in spending large shares of their income on housing relative to non-Hispanic white renters. We examine these trends – observed using data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) – to explain what they mean for renters who struggle to make ends meet.

Congress has released its first tranche of spending bills for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24), which includes funding for major housing, community development, and homelessness programs. The omnibus package of six bills (also known as a minibus) includes Congress’s proposal for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) and the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies (Agriculture-FDA). 

In the wake of a natural disaster, low-income and other systemically marginalized residents often struggle to fully recover and access tools to build resilience against future catastrophes. Affected communities can include seniors, renters, people with limited English proficiency, people with disabilities, residents of manufactured housing, and people experiencing homelessness. Supporting equitable recovery is the focus of a new research report and set of guides developed by Enterprise as part of both a cooperative agreement and a technical assistance grant awarded by HUD.

President Biden has released his request for the fiscal year 2025 (FY25) budget, following the Administration’s recent announcement of new actions to strengthen housing supply and lower housing costs and the release of the Treasury’s 2024 Housing Agenda. The budget request, while not legally binding, signals the Administration’s priorities and is a jumping off point for the congressional appropriations process for FY25. Despite the spending cap constraints from the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, the President’s budget request proposes nearly level funding for many affordable housing and community development programs, in addition to making historic investments on the mandatory spending side.