Banking Committee Passes Bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held an executive session for a markup of the bipartisan “Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act” on Tuesday, July 29.  This is the first bipartisan housing bill markup in over a decade. The bill passed out of the Committee unanimously.

The “Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act of 2025” is a bipartisan housing package that proposes reforms to a broad array of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs, including some of the campaign’s policy priorities. While these reforms would make needed changes to HUD programs, the “ROAD to Housing Act” also includes provisions that could increase burden for tenants if implemented without sufficient guardrails. The campaign is committed to working with our partners to ensure the final legislation fully meets the needs of low-income households.

The “ROAD to Housing Act” includes 40 provisions covering financial literacy, housing supply, manufactured housing, homeownership, program reform, veterans’ housing, and oversight and coordination of housing program and agencies. It includes several provisions that the campaign has supported and advocated for, including provisions from the Reforming Disaster Recovery Act and the Rural Services Reform Act.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) has published an analysis of the bill, including information on provisions we support and those we have concerns about.

Campaign joins American Institute of Architects Webinar on the Role of Architects in Housing Equity

Campaign Releases New Podcast Episode on the Impact of Eviction Threats on Parenting College Students

The campaign released a new podcast episode, “The Adverse Impact of Eviction Threats on Parenting College Students.” The episode, hosted by Julie Walker, features a discussion with Edward Conroy, Senior Policy Manager for New America’s Higher Education Policy Program, and Nick Graetz, Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Department of Sociology and Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation.

The guests discuss their issue brief, “Ousted from Opportunity: Eviction’s Adverse Impact on Parenting College Students,” which examines the unique challenges faced by students caring for children while enrolled in college, and the results of their analysis revealing the consequences that the threat of eviction has, impacting not only the likelihood of completing a degree but even life expectancy. Their findings reveal that the threat of eviction significantly reduces graduation rates and economic mobility, and Black- and women-identifying parenting students face higher rates of eviction threats due to longstanding racial inequities in housing resulting from discriminatory housing policies.

Further, the guests discuss how the current financial aid system fails to address the unique needs of students with children, and how investments in affordable housing promote successful college outcomes. The discussion emphasizes the urgent need for policy reforms that better support parenting college students, particularly in housing and education. These changes are crucial for improving graduation rates and creating generational economic stability.

New America is a member of the Opportunity Starts at Home campaign’s Opportunity Roundtable.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple, and Soundcloud.

NLIHC Releases Out of Reach 2025

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) released on July 17 Out of Reach 2025: The High Cost of Housing. Published annually, the Out of Reach report highlights the incongruity between the wages people earn and the price of modest rental housing in every state, county, and metropolitan area in the U.S. This year’s report shows that amidst ongoing economic uncertainty, incomes are struggling to keep pace with rents. At the same time, housing assistance remains deeply underfunded, and a severe shortage of affordable homes continues to push renters with low incomes into unstable and uncertain living situations.

The report’s signature statistic, the “Housing Wage,” estimates the hourly wage a full-time worker needs to earn to afford a modest rental home at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Fair Market Rent, without spending more than 30% of their income. In 2025, the national Housing Wage is $33.63 per hour for a modest two-bedroom rental home and $28.17 for a modest one-bedroom. These required wages far exceed both the federal minimum wage and the median wages of workers in many of the most common occupations, including home health aides, food service workers, and administrative assistants. Nearly half of all U.S. workers earn less than the hourly wage needed to afford a modest one-bedroom rental home. And in nowhere in the United States–no state, metropolitan area, or county–can a full-time minimum wage worker afford a modest two-bedroom rental home at Fair Market Rent.

The high cost of housing in the U.S. impacts access to other essential needs, with extremely low-income households disproportionately affected. The report highlights how millions of households earning low wages and facing high housing costs are cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their incomes on rent and utilities. Because cost-burdened households must dedicate a higher share of their income to housing, they have less to spend on other necessities like food, childcare, transportation, and health care. Research shows that severely cost-burdened poor renters, who spend more than 50% of their income on housing, spend 42% less on healthcare and 39% less on food than unburdened poor renters.

Renters across the U.S. are increasingly finding that one full-time job is no longer enough to cover the cost of rent. Many people must take on extra hours or work multiple jobs, often at the expense of their health, personal lives, families, and well-being. This reality is especially challenging for parents, as it takes away time to care for their children and potentially forces parents to leave children unsupervised. Extremely low-income renter households are more likely to be seniors, have disabilities, be students, or be single-adult caregivers. Further, due to a legacy of discrimination in housing, employment and education, Black and Hispanic renter households are disproportionately cost burdened.

The “30% rule” for measuring housing affordability can be inadequate for capturing true economic hardship, as households with medical needs, large families, or caregiving responsibilities often can not afford to spend even 30% of their income on rent. Residual income, which assesses whether a household has enough money left over after rent to cover basic needs, is a more accurate approach to measuring affordability. Research using this approach found that all renters earning less than $30,000 annually, and 81% of those earning between $30,000 and $44,999, cannot afford other necessities after paying rent. Many cost-burdened families with low incomes also end up in overcrowded or unsafe housing conditions, which further jeopardizes their health and well-being. And for many renters, a single unexpected event, like a lost job or illness, can spiral into housing instability or eviction.

Affordable housing does not have to be out of reach for renters with the lowest-incomes. Rental assistance programs, if fully funded, can provide not just housing but security, dignity, and a foundation for a better life.

Journal of Affordable Housing Article Highlights Department of Justice Study and the National Issue of Sexual Harassment in Housing

An article in volume 33 of the Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development, “Housing Sexual Harassment: A Department of Justice Case Study,” provides background on sexual harassment in housing in legal cases and existing research, followed by a Department of Justice analysis of 76 cases filed in courts across the U.S. over several decades and an interpretation of the findings. The study reveals that most alleged perpetrators are the owner-operators of rental properties. The findings indicate a lack of effective oversight and professional management in housing, which contributes to the frequency of harassment. Victims frequently initiated a complaint by contacting law enforcement, but the response was often inadequate. The findings support the need for improvements in regulatory measures and tenant protections to support tenants and prevent harassment.

Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act (FHA), prohibits sex discrimination in housing. Although there are no specific prohibitions against sexual harassment in the FHA, in 1986 the Supreme Court recognized sexual harassment as a form of illegal sex discrimination in employment and courts have applied this to the FHA’s prohibition on sex discrimination. Sexual harassment claims can be brought to courts under two theories—quid pro quo and hostile environment. Quid pro quo involves a housing related benefit that is conditioned on coercion of sexual activity, or retaliation if the victim does not comply. If arguing hostile environment, the complainant must prove that conduct was sufficiently “severe or pervasive to create a hostile or abusive living situation. While existing empirical data on sexual harassment in housing is limited, prior research indicates that most housing sexual harassment cases involve demands or requests for sexual activity in place of rent, which can be argued using either or both theories depending on the facts of the cases.

For the DOJ study, every case alleging sexual harassment in housing filed by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Housing and Civil Enforcement (HCE) Section was reviewed. The DOJ has authority to enforce the FHA, specifically with the authority to prosecute fair housing cases in federal court when there is evidence in a defendant’s pattern or practice of discrimination, or if any group of people have been denied fair housing rights and this raises an issue of “general public importance.” Filed cases are posted one the HCE Section website along with additional case-related documents, and as of January 2024 there were 76 housing sexual harassment cases. Complaints and related documents were reviewed with a focus on four factors: identity of the alleged perpetrator and their relationship to the property owner; the type of housing; the conduct alleged; and the circumstances surrounding the complaint and subsequent actions taken. The cases span 30 years, with the earliest filed in 1993 and most recent in 2023.

Major findings from the case analysis include:

• 73% of the alleged perpetrators were the owners-operators of housing.

• The most common form of harassment, found in 93% of cases, was the perpetrator’s offer or attempt to obtain sex in exchange for tenancy, reductions on rent, or repairs.

• In 66% of cases, the perpetrator allegedly evicted, threatened to evict, or refused to rent to people who refused the offer.

• The most common way that victims made a complaint was to call law enforcement, which is some cases appeared to have jeopardized their housing with some victims being evicted or given notices to vacate after making the complaint.

• 92% of cases involved private landlords operating rental properties.

These findings indicate that perpetrators of housing sexual harassment are more likely to be owner-operators of private rental housing, who are often operating with little oversight or monitoring of their actions. While professional infrastructure has been developed to address sexual harassment in employment, no similar infrastructure exists in the context of housing. Employers have a strong incentive to develop and implement anti-harassment policies under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in employment, but housing providers do not have the same legal incentives as employers to create similar policies. HUD provides recommendations for owners and property managers to develop and implement policies again sexual harassment, and the author calls for future research on potential policy levers that could further incentivize this.

The data available on housing sexual harassment also suggests that women with low incomes are most likely to be victims. While some commentators have speculated that sexual harassment in housing is more likely to occur in public housing or the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, existing data suggests that there is no increased likelihood of being victimized while living in subsidized housing compared to the purely private rental market. However, the DOJ study does reveal that a significant amount of housing sexual harassment is perpetrated by landlords participating in the HCV program or Housing Authority employees. The author recommends that HUD continue to expand efforts to protect tenants in HUD-assisted housing.

Take Action! Urge Congress to Support Robust Housing Solutions

Join the OSAH Roundtable

Source: National Low Income Housing Coalition