Reintroduction of the Home Investment Partnerships Reauthorization and Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I am thrilled to reintroduce the ``HOME Investment Partnerships Reauthorization and Improvement Act,'' with Representative Joyce Beatty (D-OH03). I thank our original cosponsors for their support, as well as U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) for sponsoring the companion bill. This updated legislation would significantly increase federal funding available for affordable housing across the country to tackle the housing crisis in states like California.

With historically high housing costs, a minimum wage worker in California must work an 88-hour week on average to afford a modest one- bedroom rental at a fair market rate. No American working full-time should live in poverty or be forced into homelessness. Congress and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) must support collaborative solutions to incentivize affordable housing production and rental assistance to address the drastic shortage of housing options in California and across the country.

The HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME) is the largest federal affordable housing block grant and is HUD's flagship program to support private developers and nonprofits building new affordable housing. Since established by Congress in 1990, the HOME program has helped state and local housing agencies support a wide variety of housing needs, from financing new construction and home repairs to funding down payment and rental assistance. HOME funding is the primary federal tool available for state and local governments to build affordable rental and owner-occupied housing for low-income to extremely low-income families with private developers. Moreover, HOME is a great federal investment, leveraging $4.76 in non-federal public and private funds for every dollar in HOME funding.

Since 1992, the HOME program has supported more than 1.36 million units of affordable housing for renters, home buyers, and homeowners. In California, the HOME program has invested $5.27 billion into affordable housing across the state; built or preserved 121,727 homes; given rental assistance to 43,810 families; supported 277,318 jobs; and generated $19.2 billion in local economic development.

Despite these incredible investments, this essential program was last reauthorized in 1994 and needs critical updates to better address today's housing crisis. Our legislation would not only reauthorize the HOME program for the first time in three decades, but also make several much-needed improvements.

Specifically, our bicameral ``HOME Investment Partnerships Reauthorization and Improvement Act'' would authorize $5 billion in HOME funding for fiscal year 2024 and boost the funding for the program by five percent annually through fiscal year 2028. This critical investment would reverse the chronic underfunding of the affordable housing investment program, which Congress appropriated only $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2023.

In addition, our bill would allow HUD to make loan guarantees under the HOME program, leveraging limited federal resources to allow state and local participating jurisdictions to tap more generous private financing to build new affordable housing. It would also improve HUD's ability to provide downpayment assistance to homebuyers and home repair assistance to homeowners under the HOME program. Moreover our bill would unlock HOME funds for nonprofits, community land trusts, and other shared equity homeownership partnerships to make more and better affordable housing available to those Americans most in need.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members of Congress to cosponsor the ``HOME Investment Partnerships Reauthorization and Improvement Act'' to bring this critical HUD program into the 21st century and provide state and local partners with the financing needed to construct and rehabilitate affordable rental housing and provide homeownership opportunities for working families. Lastly, I want to thank my former Legislative Assistant, Mr. Tigran Agdaian, for his critically important role in developing this legislation during the 116th Congress while on my staff.

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