💬 Discussion
Illustration for the category Housing and community amenities
United States · Federal (Congress, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the tax code) · COFOG 06.1

Housing and Land Use

This area covers how many homes get built in the United States, who may build them where, and what the federal government does about the price of the ones that exist. It does not cover mortgage regulation, homelessness services, or the property taxes that fund local government.

Where things stand

Half of American renter households now spend more than thirty percent of their income on housing — 22.6 million of them, a record for the third consecutive year — and more than a quarter spend more than half. The count of people sleeping in shelters or outside reached 771,480 in January 2024, eighteen percent higher than a year earlier. Behind both numbers is a supply gap that estimates put at about four million homes nationally, and a much sharper one at the bottom: for every hundred renter households with extremely low incomes there are thirty-five homes they can afford and that are actually available. The reason is not mainly the cost of building. It is that the decision whether a home may be built at all sits with about nineteen thousand municipalities, most of which apply rules written when land was cheap, and the federal government has almost no say in any of them. That began to change in 2026. In July Congress passed the first substantial bipartisan housing law since the 1990s, which exempts infill and rehabilitation projects from federal environmental review and offers competitive grants to places that loosen their own rules. Six months earlier the tax law had permanently enlarged the credit that finances most subsidised construction, raising state allocations by twelve percent and halving the bond threshold that projects must meet to qualify.

Facts & figures
22.6 million
Renter households spending more than 30 percent of income on housing, half of all renters
↗ a record for the third consecutive year; 27 percent spend more than half
about 4.0 million
Estimated national shortfall of homes of any kind
→ estimates range from 1.5 to 5.5 million depending on method
35 per 100
Homes affordable and available for every hundred renter households with extremely low incomes
↘ falling; a shortage of 7.1 million homes at that end of the market
771,480
People counted as homeless on a night in January
↗ up 18 percent in a year, the largest rise on record
about 19,000
Municipalities that decide whether a home may be built, largely without federal involvement
→ unchanged; the federal role is money and environmental review, not permission
11 July 2026
Date the first substantial bipartisan federal housing law since the 1990s took effect
→ environmental review exemptions plus competitive grants for local rule changes
+12 %
Permanent increase in the state allocation of the credit that finances most subsidised construction
↗ in force since January 2026, with the bond threshold halved from 50 to 25 percent
up to 1.2 million
Additional subsidised homes the enlarged credit is estimated to finance over a decade
↗ an industry estimate; the share that is a net addition to supply is disputed
Sources: Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, The State of the Nation's Housing · Congressional Research Service, Estimates of a housing shortage · National Low Income Housing Coalition, The Gap: a shortage of affordable homes · U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Annual Homeless Assessment Report · National Low Income Housing Coalition, The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act becomes law · Northmarq and Novogradac, 2025 affordable housing tax changes — as of 2023–2026, last reviewed 09/2026

Overview

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Zoning grants Zoning grants Housing credit Housing credit
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Proposals

2 evaluated · sorted by balance
Last reviewed by Claude Opus 5 · September 6, 2026 · 1× AI, not yet reviewed by a human
  1. September 6, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5First evaluation

    Area created for the English side: cost burden, the supply gap and the two federal measures of 2026 researched against Harvard, congressional and department sources.

Evaluations are produced with AI support and reviewed on a schedule for new developments; human passes are marked separately.How we review →

Evaluated with the Global Debate Evaluation Standard (GDES), Scoring v1.3 · global scale, comparable across areas · How we score →