The Housing Crisis is Clear to All: So, What’s the Solution to Affordable Housing?

American families can’t afford a street fight when it comes to housing reform.

Just before Inauguration Day, inflation data showed that the so-called shelter index—costs, including rent, mortgage payments, insurance, and utilities, that make up the biggest part of inflation—had risen for the 56^th consecutive month. Mortgage rates are now just below 7 percent, even with Fed rate cuts, and forecasts show mortgage rates staying above 6 percent through at least 2026.

Americans have made no secret of their anger over escalating costs, but this frustration is about more than just the price of eggs. More than 70 percent are identifying housing costs as a major concern. Unlike groceries or gas, housing isn’t something you can simply buy less of when prices rise; rent and mortgage payments hit every month, and for millions of us, there’s no escape hatch.

In response, the electorate has voted the incumbent party out of the White House three elections in a row—the first time in well over a century. Democrats and Republicans would do well, then, to embrace transformative, specific housing solutions if they want to have any chance of holding or winning power.

And although it can feel as if every part of the government is in a constant state of gridlock (especially now), policymakers across the U.S. have made strides in responding to the housing crisis. The housing provisions of President Joe Biden’s original “Build Back Better” proposals were negotiated out of the final deal, and his Department of Housing and Urban Development and other agencies worked to pull any levers they could to expand the number of affordable homes. Those efforts were crucial in incentivizing zoning reforms and creatively channeling more funds to state and local levels.

When it comes to the second Trump administration, HUD Secretary Scott Turner reckoned with the urgency of the crisis at his confirmation hearing, calling for an all-of-the-above approach to housing. And one of the president’s many Inauguration Day executive orders—a whole-of-government promise to seek new ways to drive down costs, specifically calling out the housing affordability crisis that afflicts nearly every community in the country—urges the government to increase housing supply and bring down housing costs.

But what we need is a specific game plan, and one that grapples with the enormity of what has become a crisis in every state and territory in this country, from big cities to rural tracts and everywhere in between.

Indeed, it’s likely the enormity of the problem that makes a grand strategy difficult to articulate. Thousands of factors go into the creation and preservation of housing, from local market forces to regulations to supply and labor costs and so much more. Rather than one housing “system,” we have thousands, with local, state, regional, and federal players all having a hand in how we affordably and safely accommodate more than 130 million American households.