Presidential Candidate Cory Booker Releases Affordable Housing Plan

Senator Cory Booker introduced a plan to address the nation’s affordable housing challenges last week and outlined the details in an article posted on the website Medium. The plan includes:

• A refundable federal income tax credit for all renters who pay more than 30% of their income on rent.
• A federally funded savings account for every child at birth. Each child would receive $1,000 in their account and would be eligible to access the account at age 18. The Senator estimates that by age 18, account holders would have access to nearly $50,000 for a variety of needs, including a down payment on a home.
• Incentivize localities to eliminate restrictive zoning rules by tying certain federal funding to local governments demonstrating progress towards reducing barriers to affordable housing.
• $40 billion annually for the Housing Trust Fund.
• Calls to invest in rural housing programs.
• Create a Right to Counsel Fund to provide funding to states and localities that commit to enacting right to counsel for low-income renters facing eviction.
• Update the Fair Housing Act to outlaw discrimination based on source of income, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
• Roll back barriers to federal housing assistance programs and reform screening and eviction processes for federal housing assistance programs.
• Restore the Obama-era fair housing rule requiring states and localities to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing.
• Prohibit consumer reporting agencies from using information from eviction courts if the tenant has won the case.
• Fund McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants at $6 billion annually and make the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness permanent.