During the 12 years that Republicans ran the House, their leaders didn't pay much attention to affordable-housing activists. Despite soaring rents and complaints of a deepening affordability crisis, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) told his conference that he didn't want to see housing bills on the floor. He thought housing programs were unreformed welfare -- and they competed for the same pot of money in an annual funding bill as his beloved NASA.But now that Democrats took over the House in November, their leaders are affordable-housing activists. Liberals Barney Frank (Mass.) and Maxine Waters (Calif.) run the two panels overseeing housing policy after agitating for years, without success, for increased government rent assistance. They came to office promising to pass the first major housing legislation since the early 1990s.
Last month, the House passed their bill, a measure to address the housing shortages that have festered on the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005. After the storm wiped out 82,000 rental units in New Orleans, DeLay blocked a housing bill from Richard H. Baker (R-La.) because, sources said, the majority leader did not consider Baker a "team player." But Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), now speaker of the House, campaigned on Katrina inaction -- a prime example, she told audiences last fall, of the "do-nothing Congress" -- and vowed a fast reversal. The resulting Democratic bill includes several bold precedents, including a "right to return" for all displaced hurricane victims and "one-for-one replacement" for all demolished public housing units.
Democratic leaders say the Katrina bill -- which has yet to come up for a vote in the Senate -- is just a beginning. They hope to create a huge affordable-housing trust fund, restrict predatory lending, expand rent subsidies and tax credits for low-income housing, and push the federal government back into apartment construction.
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