A maintenance worker sweeps the street in front of a row of new homes in Fairfax, Virginia, on August 22, 2023.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday unveiled a new list of funding initiatives to support housing development, including a $100 million fund specifically for affordable housing.
The announcement came days before President Joe Biden faces former President Donald Trump in the first presidential debate, where inflation is likely to be a central point of contention.
Recent inflation reports have shown that prices are cooling slightly, but accommodation costs remain persistently high. The latest consumer price index report showed that headline inflation was flat in May, while housing inflation rose 0.4%.
“I expect housing inflation to moderate,” Yellen said during a speech in Minneapolis on Monday afternoon. “But we are facing a very significant housing shortage that has been increasing for a long time, and this shortage of supply has created an affordability crisis.”
As part of its new measures, the Treasury will provide $100 million over the next three years to finance affordable housing projects. She is also calling on several agencies that help finance housing to increase their support for new developments.
Yellen’s speech was part of a multi-day tour of Minnesota that included a lunch with CEOs and roundtable discussions with state housing officials.
As the president settles into Camp David to prepare for Thursday’s debate, Yellen is among numerous Cabinet members traveling across the country to advance the president’s economic agenda.
Acting Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Adrianne Todman and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, for example, have traveled across the country to promote Biden’s infrastructure investments.
The economy has emerged as a major sticking point for Biden among voters.
Due to supply chain congestion and labor shortages during the pandemic, the record inflation that followed continues for consumers who still feel squeezed by higher prices. Polls show that many of them blame the president, who has been in office the entire time.
In particular, housing costs, which account for one of the largest shares of consumer spending, remained stubbornly high even as other sectors cooled.
Biden has tried to shift responsibility for high housing costs onto landlords, accusing them of “rent gouging” that keeps consumers’ rents artificially high even as their own costs have fallen.
“People are tired of being played for idiots,” Biden said in March. “And I’m tired of making them play for idiots.”
The National Apartment Association, a major landlord lobby, issued a statement in early June rejecting Biden’s aggressive campaign rhetoric against landlords.
“Politics has no place in housing and it is long past time for policymakers to take action on housing,” the group wrote in the statement. “In the coming months, the NAA will continue to advocate for housing providers in the election campaign.”
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2024-06-24 20:11:21
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