We’ve been writing, a lot, about the lack of affordable housing in Waynesboro, with our goal being to make addressing the issue a flashpoint in the local City Council elections in 2024.
It’s an issue nationwide as well, as evidenced by the way Democratic Party presidential nominee Kamala Harris brought up affordable housing in her answer to the first question of last week’s ABC News debate.
“We know that we have a shortage of homes and housing, and the cost of housing is too expensive for far too many people,” said Harris, who rolled out an affordable housing plan last month that calls for the construction of 3 million new housing units, federal tax incentives for homebuilders to spur construction of starter homes, and a $40 billion innovation fund that local governments would be able to tap into.
The plan also includes $25,000 in down-payment support for first-time homeowners and for home renters who have paid their rent on time for two years and are buying their first home.
One other part to the Harris plan that seems like it would work – legislation to remove tax benefits for major investors who acquire large numbers of single-family rental homes.
Harris has also vowed to crack down on corporate landlords buying housing and renting them at high prices, which is something we’re seeing happening here on the ground in Waynesboro.
Donald Trump didn’t engage on affordable housing in last week’s debate. There is mention of what you could call a “concept of a plan” on the Trump campaign website, which refers to the Republican Party platform’s language on helping new home buyers with a proposal to “reduce mortgage rates by slashing inflation,” “opening limited portions of federal lands to allow for new home construction,” “promoting home ownership through tax incentives and support for first-time buyers,” and cutting “unnecessary” regulations that “raise housing costs.”
It’s not even just being fair to point out that, there ain’t a lot there.
Whereas with the Harris plan, we get something that would impact how things are done at the local level, with cities, like Waynesboro, able to tap into billions of dollars in federal funds to be able to partner with developers on affordable-housing projects, with tax incentives making it more attractive to home-builders to get into the starter-home market, and down-payment support that will help more first-time buyers get into homes.
I can see what Harris is proposing actually doing something to get more people into better living situations.
What I see out of the Trump/Republican “plan” is that somebody spent about two minutes cutting and pasting boilerplate language from the first item that came up under “affordable housing” in a Google search, and that may be overstating the “effort” that went into it.
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Chris Graham
