The Build Back Better Act represents a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to turn the tide on homelessness and housing insecurity, Diane Yentel told her audience at the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania's "Homes Within Reach" conference in Hershey.
"We have waited and worked decades for this moment," and it will be decades before a similar chance arrives, said Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Founded in the mid-1970s, the National Low Income Housing Coalition focuses its attention and advocacy on housing for individuals and families on the lowest end of the income scale. It advocates for preserving and expanding federal housing assistance and the supply of low-income housing and establishing housing stability as "the primary purpose" of low-income housing policy.
Yentel spoke Dec. 2 at a breakfast session that doubled as the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania's official membership meeting.
The pandemic was a wake-up call, she said: It exposed "the pervasive housing crisis" that already made it difficult for working families to make ends meet, as well as patterns of systemic racism that create additional barriers for Black, Hispanic and indigenous communities.
That awareness informed the coalition's response to the pandemic, which involved mobilizing advocates across the country, Yentel said.
That effort was "tremendously successful," she said, resulting in eviction moratoriums and legislation directing billions of dollars toward housing and unemployment assistance.
In all, the federal government poured $87 billion into housing stability, keeping roofs over the heads of tens of millions of people, Yentel said.
Yet "clearly we're not done," she said: 6.5 million households remain behind on rent, including more than a quarter of all Black households and nearly one in five Latino one.
Accordingly, local Emergency Rental Assistance programs must continue making every effort to help all eligible households, she said, and advocates must continue pushing for funding for low-income housing.
About Build Back Better
The U.S. House passed Build Back Better last month by a party-line vote of 220-213, with one Democrat voting no. The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities says the following provisions in the $1.75 trillion spending package would constitute "historic investments" in affordable housing:
- $24 billion to fund 300,000 new Housing Choice Vouchers, benefiting nearly 700,000 individuals;
- $65 billion to fund repairs and renovations to public housing
- $25 billion to build or preserve low-income rental housing through the national Housing Trust Fund and HOME Investment Partnerships.
Other provisions of Build Back Better would extend the enhanced Child Tax Credit enacted in the American Rescue Plan Act; expand childcare subsidies and allow the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices.
Republicans assail Build Back Better as governmental overreach and say it will exacerbate inflation and supply shortages. Lancaster County's U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker voted against the bill, calling it "a disaster for the American people."
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he aims to pass Build Back Better before Christmas.
Yentel contends the legislation would be transformative.
If enacted, she said, Americans will look back on 2021 as "the year we began to end homelessness and housing poverty in our country once and for all."
