Infrastructure

Public housing plays a critical role in our nation's infrastructure, providing families with a stable home and helping them gain access to other services, including education and health. When we invest in public housing, we help low-income families achieve self-sufficiency and improve life outcomes, but we also generate economic growth, bolster productivity, and positively impact support services while significantly decreasing costs. When we commit substantial federal investment toward public and affordable housing, we revitalize communities, create new jobs, and help break the cycle of poverty. Simply put: housing IS infrastructure. Like roads and bridges, affordable housing is a long-term asset that provides a safe, quality living environment for families. In fact, across the United States, public housing provides 1.2 million units of housing to over 2.2 million people, including 800,000 children, and more than half the population in public housing is elderly and disabled.

Despite how critical public housing is to the stability of many lower-income families, there has been significant disinvestment in public housing over the last two decades. Our public housing stock is aging, and historic levels of underfunding have contributed to the loss of over 10,000 units of housing each year. Between 1990 and 2010, alone, HUD estimates that the U.S. lost over 300,000 units of affordable public housing. This shortage of affordable housing in major metropolitan areas costs the American economy about $2 trillion each year in lower wages and productivity. As the nation struggles with an affordable housing crisis, investing in public housing is investing in infrastructure.

Housing Is Infrastructure Fact Sheet

Housing Is Infrastructure News

4.22.21

Statement of Sunia Zaterman, Executive Director, Council of Large Public Housing Authorities on Congressional Republicans' Counter Proposal to the American Jobs Plan

Media Contact:
David Greer, CLPHA
dgreer@clpha.org

(202) 550-1381

For Immediate Release
April 22, 2021

(Washington, D.C.) April 22, 2021 – CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman released the following statement today in response to Congressional Republicans' counter proposal to the American Jobs Plan:

"The Republicans’ $568 billion counter proposal to the Biden administration’s American Jobs Plan released today is woefully inadequate without a housing component. The $213 billion to produce, preserve, and retrofit more than one million housing units in the Jobs Plan is not an expansive view of infrastructure, but rather is as critical as roads, bridges and broadband.

"CLPHA recently released analysis that found the $40 billion dollars committed to recapitalizing public housing infrastructure in the Jobs Plan nearly doubles its investment with $76 billion in economic impact generated and 440,000 jobs created. Public housing plays a critical role in our nation’s public infrastructure, providing families with a stable home and helping them gain access to other services, including education and health. When we invest in public housing, we help low-income families achieve self-sufficiency and improve life outcomes.

The final infrastructure bill will not be a success without housing."

About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities is a national non-profit organization that works to preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis and public education. CLPHA’s 70 members represent virtually every major metropolitan area in the country. Together they manage 40 percent of the nation’s public housing program; administer more than a quarter of the Housing Choice Voucher program; and operate a wide array of other housing programs. Learn more at clpha.org and on Twitter @CLPHA .

About CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative
The Housing Is Initiative, led by the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, helps build a future where sectors work together to improve life outcomes. Housing stability is a critical first step to improve life outcomes for low-income children, families, and seniors; CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative is based on the premise that sectors can better meet needs when they work together. Housing Is establishes, broadens, and deepens efforts to align affordable housing, education, and health systems to produce positive, long-term results. Learn more at housingis.org and on Twitter @housing_is.

4.15.21

House Committee Hearing on Housing Infrastructure, CLPHA Analysis Frames Economic Impact of Public Housing Investment

On Wednesday, April 14, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services with Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) presiding held a virtual hearing entitled “Build Back Better: Investing in Equitable and Affordable Housing Infrastructure.”

The hearing focus revolved around the Biden Administration’s proposed $1.9 trillion “American Jobs Plan” and Chairwoman Water’s proposed “Housing is Infrastructure Act,” along with other legislative proposals by committee members concerning public housing modernization, lead safe housing, broadband, greening public housing, health hazards in housing, disaster recovery, and other topics.

Hearing witnesses were Diane Yentel, President and CEO, National Low Income Housing Coalition; Dr. Michael McAfee, President and CEO, PolicyLink; Jacqueline Waggoner, President, Solutions Division, Enterprise Community Partners; Dr. Saule Omarove, Beth and Mark Goldberg Professor of Law, Cornell University; and Brian Riedl, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute.

Chairwoman Waters opened the hearing by declaring, “The Committee will be focusing on the need for major investments in equitable and affordable housing infrastructure… I’m pleased that President Biden has, as part of his American Jobs Plan, recognized that housing is a critical part of our nation’s infrastructure… The newest version of my bill provides over $237 billion in new funding, including $70 billion to address the capital needs of our nation’s public housing, $35 billion for the HOME Program to provide capital and rental assistance for affordable housing, as well as $45 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund and $12 billion for the Capital Magnet Fund, which together will leverage private sector investment to create new affordable housing for our country’s poorest households, including in rural and tribal areas. My bill also provides over $6 billion in grants to eliminate exclusionary local zoning barriers that have impeded construction of affordable housing… It is exciting that, after years of federal underinvestment in housing, we really have momentum for serious, equitable investments in our housing system.”

Ms. Yentel focused her testimony on the housing needs of the lowest-income people, the need to invest in vital affordable housing programs through a comprehensive infrastructure and jobs package, and how doing so will help our nation not only recover from the pandemic but thrive in its wake, along with the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and structural racism on the health, housing and other systems affecting Black, Indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC) experiencing homelessness, overcrowding, or housing instability. Ms. Yentel cited numbers generated by CLPHA that found the $40 billion dedicated to the public housing in the American Jobs Plan will generate 440,00 jobs and $76 billion in economic impact. Ms. Yentel concluded that “significant and sustained investments are needed to preserve and expand our nation’s affordable housing infrastructure…and achieve the large-scale, sustained investments and reforms necessary to begin to end housing poverty and homelessness in our country, once and for all.”

Dr. McAfee of PolicyLink, a racial equity research and action institute, observed, “This leadership moment not only requires the federal government to view its investments through its core commitment to racial equity. It is about building a new infrastructure for our 21st century multiracial democracy – one that centers the 100 million economically insecure Americans and ensures every person is securely housed. We have to build this new infrastructure in a different way. Housing is at the heart of this, because housing is one of the biggest drivers of the racial wealth gap. Housing shapes the physical landscape of inequity: segregation, disinvestment, and exclusion.” To end this nation’s housing affordability crisis, Dr. McAfee promoted a series of recommendations including a “need to invest at least $200 billion for housing acquisition through the National Housing Trust Fund or a new Housing Infrastructure Bank; $70 billion in capital improvements to public housing for maintenance, greening, operations, and to end the current backlog in repair needs; prioritize the creation of 12 million new housing units over the next 10 years with an investment of $1 trillion; the federal government must issue enough (housing) vouchers to make wait lists a relic of the past, and ensure universal access for all who qualify; and establish a national requirement for rent stabilization to accompany any housing infrastructure investments,” along with other recommendations.

In addition to laying out the case for an equitable recovery, rebuilding our economy, and housing affordability challenges, Ms. Waggoner addressed the challenges and opportunities for green building efforts with housing as infrastructure. Ms. Waggoner cautioned, “Without a concerted and coordinated effort, housing around the country will continue to be built or renovated without green building standards and will be unprepared to meet the demands of a changing climate. It is essential for the Federal Government to lead the way, providing multi-pronged solutions that holistically address educational, capacity, policy, institutional and capital barriers in order to ensure that affordable housing does not exacerbate climate change and is prepared to withstand climate change.” Ms. Waggoner continued, “Green building policy is not consistent across all states nor across all affordable housing funding streams. Where there are not incentives, developers face an uphill battle. Developers, investors, and other stakeholders involved in building affordable housing must ensure that each project is financially viable, and concern about additional front-end costs is a very real factor that can deter affordable housing developers from building to green standards, particularly as construction costs in general continue to trend upwards. In the current affordable housing financing structure, it is challenging, if not impossible, for developers to add on upfront costs, even if the savings and benefits are quickly realized by owners and residents.”

Dr. Omarova tailored her remarks to the Housing is Infrastructure Act’s establishment of a National Investment Authority and its operating subsidiaries, the National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) and the National Capital Management Corporation (NCMC, or “Nicky Mac”)—federally-chartered government-owned corporations, through which the NIA would conduct all of its financial market operations. According to Dr. Omarova, the NIB would operate along the familiar lines of the home finance government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). As Dr. Omarova noted, “Currently, many infrastructure projects are deemed not economically viable mainly because private creditors are not willing to take on the complex task of valuing, tracking, and managing risks of multiple geographically dispersed and relatively small-scale projects. The illiquid and fragmented nature of the existing market for municipal bonds, in turn, hinders the ability of local and state governments to access affordable financing for these much-needed projects. The NIB would specifically target these scale inefficiencies by creating and maintaining a nationwide market for these traditional forms of infrastructure finance.”

The final witness, Brian Riedl, presented a critique of President Biden’s American Jobs Plan proposal covering four main points: 1) the $2.6 trillion cost of the plan is fiscally irresponsible given America’s daunting federal budget outlook; 2) America’s main infrastructure policy challenge is not funding, but rather the slow, bureaucratic, high-cost implementation of the policies; and spending another $1 trillion without making these programs more effective is a poor use of taxpayer dollars; 3) there is a broad economic consensus that infrastructure policies do not provide short-term stimulus, and most new construction jobs are redistributed from other jobs; and 4) the American Jobs Plan includes a historic expansion of corporate grants, loans, and contracts with little-to-no Congressional oversight, while federal micromanagement of innovation and research is the wrong approach.

After laying out his case replete with examples and statistics, Mr. Riedl summarized his testimony by exhorting Congress to fix the system first and be fiscally responsible, declaring, “There are no plausible taxes that can finance the projected spending levels, and counting on the Federal Reserve to monetize much of this debt is a recipe for economic chaos.” According to Mr. Riedl, “Spending $1 trillion on infrastructure without fixing the underlying waste, inefficiencies, and delays in our system represents an extraordinary missed opportunity and confuses spending levels with outcomes. Giving the administration carte blanche to hand out hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare simply doubles down on past policy mistakes. Lawmakers should first reform the infrastructure costs and delays and encourage states to use their $530 billion in federal aid to address local infrastructure priorities.”

4.9.21

CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman Appears LIVE on C-SPAN's Washington Journal

4.8.21

$40 Billion Investment in Public Housing Infrastructure Returns $76 Billion in Economic Impact and Creates 440,000 Jobs

Media Contact:
David Greer, CLPHA
dgreer@clpha.org

(202) 550-1381

For Immediate Release
April 9, 2021

(Washington, D.C.) April 9, 2021 – The Biden Administration’s recently announced infrastructure proposal, The American Jobs Plan, includes a $40 billion commitment to recapitalize public housing infrastructure. Applying data from a report by Econsult Solutions (ESI), a private data analytics firm, CLPHA estimates that 440,000 jobs will be created and $76 billion in economic impact generated during the time when the $40 billion in funds are spent. “Investing in public housing infrastructure offers many economic benefits beyond lifting families out of poverty and preventing homelessness,” said Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA). “The American Jobs Plan is the first to provide the size and scale of resources necessary to repair the crumbling infrastructure of public housing. In return local employers, governments, and industries will benefit from an economic activity that outpaces investment and creation of good-paying construction jobs.” CLPHA commissioned ESI to evaluate the economic impacts of six public housing authorities (PHAs) in diverse markets across the country. Released in late 2018, “The Economic Impact of Public Housing: Ongoing Investment with Wide-Reaching Returns” found that PHAs generate and induce multiple streams of economic activity benefiting public housing residents and their local communities. For every $1 million PHAs spend on capital investments, $1.89 million in economic activity is generated and 11 full-time jobs are supported. CLPHA applied the American Jobs Plan’s $40 billion for recapitalizing public housing infrastructure with ESI’s economic impact numbers and found the American Jobs Plan will generate $76 billion in economic activity and 440,00 jobs — a nearly 2 to 1 ratio for economic impact generated to dollars spent. “After decades of chronic underfunding and disinvestment in public housing infrastructure, the American Jobs Plan can be game changing. Local communities have an opportunity to experience the benefits of a robust public and affordable housing system,” said Zaterman. “Whether it is improving life outcomes for low-income families, creating positive impacts in surrounding neighborhoods of well-maintained public housing, expanding local and state tax bases, or spurring regional job creation and economic growth, public housing is a benefit. It is clear from the American Jobs Plan that the Biden Administration is committed to advancing public housing.”


*About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities* The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities is a national non-profit organization that works to preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis and public education. CLPHA’s 70 members represent virtually every major metropolitan area in the country. Together they manage 40 percent of the nation’s public housing program; administer more than a quarter of the Housing Choice Voucher program; and operate a wide array of other housing programs. Learn more at *clpha.org* and on Twitter @CLPHA* .* *About CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative* The Housing Is Initiative, led by the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, helps build a future where sectors work together to improve life outcomes. Housing stability is a critical first step to improve life outcomes for low-income children, families, and seniors; CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative is based on the premise that sectors can better meet needs when they work together. Housing Is establishes, broadens, and deepens efforts to align affordable housing, education, and health systems to produce positive, long-term results. Learn more at housingis.org and on Twitter @housing_is.

3.31.21

Statement of CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman on the Announcement of the American Jobs Plan

Media Contact:
David Greer, CLPHA
dgreer@clpha.org

(202) 550-1381

For Immediate Release
March 31, 2021

(Washington, D.C.) March 31, 2021 – Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, released the following statement upon President Biden’s announcement of the American Jobs Plan: “The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities applauds President Biden’s transformative American Jobs Plan to reimagine and rebuild the American economy by centering housing as key to accomplishing the administration’s top priorities of economic impact, racial equity, and climate change. The $213 billion to produce, preserve, and retrofit more than one million housing units, with $40 billion targeted at the long-neglected public housing capital needs, is the size and scale that can move the needle on improving public housing infrastructure. CLPHA has called for a 10-year road map to recapitalize the public housing portfolio. “The centrality of public and affordable housing means its impact reaches beyond shelter. It is also critical to other key elements of the American jobs plan including expanding broadband, improving childcare, and increasing health care opportunities. Public housing authorities are the most efficient delivery mechanism for these critical services because of their understanding of local needs, especially the needs of underserved communities of color. Public housing authorities stand ready to implement the bill when it becomes law. CLPHA will work closely with Congress to ensure that the housing provisions are fully funded and remain central to the bill.”


*About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities* The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities is a national non-profit organization that works to preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis and public education. CLPHA’s 70 members represent virtually every major metropolitan area in the country. Together they manage 40 percent of the nation’s public housing program; administer more than a quarter of the Housing Choice Voucher program; and operate a wide array of other housing programs. Learn more at *clpha.org* and on Twitter @CLPHA* .* *About CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative* The Housing Is Initiative, led by the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, helps build a future where sectors work together to improve life outcomes. Housing stability is a critical first step to improve life outcomes for low-income children, families, and seniors; CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative is based on the premise that sectors can better meet needs when they work together. Housing Is establishes, broadens, and deepens efforts to align affordable housing, education, and health systems to produce positive, long-term results. Learn more at housingis.org and on Twitter @housing_is.