https://washingtonsun.com/housing Housing en-US Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:38:45 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/housing/housing-and-urban-development-accessibility-report-limit-policy-change Raymond Fernández, Eric Katz A new Housing and Urban Development policy could cause big problems for disabled tenants. Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:38:45 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/housing/housing-and-urban-development-accessibility-report-limit-policy-change The Trump administration is making it harder to hold builders who violate accessibility requirements accountable.

A new policy furthers the administration’s push to roll back fair housing laws, shortening the time period to address violations. The Housing and Urban Development's fair housing laws’ enforcement arm told employees on Monday that complaints alleging housing law violations must be filed with the office within one year of the “allegedly unlawful” construction of a building being completed.

They framed the change as a means to cut red tape. Housing advocates say it would incentivize builders to neglect accessibility requirements that are already underenforced and, in most instances, undiscovered within the now-required one-year limit.

“This is a strong signal that HUD — and this administration — is going to turn a blind eye if you build a building not in conformance with the accessibility requirements,” Sasha Samberg-Champion, special civil rights counsel at the National Fair Housing Alliance and a former deputy general counsel for HUD, told NOTUS.

The new guidance effectively eliminates HUD’s Obama-era interpretation of the Fair Housing Act, the law that Congress amended in 1988 to require developers to build certain multifamily units with accessible features for disabled people. The statute of limitations to report violations prior to the Obama administration varied by region due to an array of court decisions.

In 2013, HUD and the Department of Justice formalized a policy allowing individuals to file a complaint “at any time until the violation” was corrected in most cases.

The Trump administration justified its policy change in a memo, first reported by Fox News, saying the expanded interpretation of the law shifted the burden of accessibility violations onto subsequent owners. Under the 2013 policy, those new owners could be forced to pay for costly violations years after a building was completed — even if they had nothing to do with its design or construction.

A spokesperson for HUD said the guidance follows Congress’ original intent and the courts’ interpretation of the Fair Housing Act.

“Under President Trump’s and Secretary [Scott] Turner’s leadership, HUD is upholding and enforcing the civil rights of all Americans, especially the most vulnerable among us,” the spokesperson said in a statement to NOTUS. “Changes to this statute of limitations must come from Congress, not HUD.”

The department did not provide any guidance or warning to staff before issuing the new memo, which was sent at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

A HUD employee who was granted anonymity to discuss internal policy said the department previously could assist a tenant newly moving into a building that was out of compliance with the fair housing law, even if the building was constructed 30 years ago. The department will no longer be able help in such a case, and the building owner will be shielded from any enforcement action.

To maintain a similar level of oversight going forward, the employee said, the department would have to dramatically increase staffing to make sure accessibility issues are caught immediately. The agency would also have to aggressively prosecute developers that create inaccessible housing and immediately impose rebuilding requirements within a year of completion. The department was highly unlikely to take those steps, the employee said.

“What HUD has done is say the harm is caused at the point of the construction, but from a realistic lens, the harm is really caused at the point that someone experiences the harm,” a former HUD official, granted anonymity to discuss the policy freely, told NOTUS.

Housing advocates say the change creates a massive issue for disabled tenants, who under the new policy cannot challenge violations even if they weren’t aware of the infractions within the one-year period.

“The idea that a person is not harmed by inaccessible housing because they encountered it 366 days after a certificate of occupancy is issued versus 365 days afterwards is ludicrous,” said Kate Scott, executive director of the Equal Rights Center. “It is already extremely difficult for people who have been discriminated against to enforce their fair housing rights. This memo from HUD will only make it harder.”

The guidance is the latest effort by HUD to narrow its fair housing enforcement. In September 2025, the agency withdrew eight guidance documents focused on fair housing, including criminal-records screening directives, and told staff to deprioritize disparate impact cases, which the department had used to prosecute discrimination. Earlier this year, HUD proposed eliminating the disparate impact regulations altogether.

Frank Cassidy, a former federal housing commissioner under the Trump administration, framed the policy change as a major affordability win for the administration and the lenders and developers who will no longer be “burdened” by the previous interpretation.

“HUD is restoring the statute of limitations Congress actually wrote, giving owners, lenders and developers certainty, removing barriers to FHA multifamily financing, and ultimately making it easier and less expensive to preserve and build housing,” he said.

Turner said in a statement that the change “rescinds unnecessary and expensive liabilit[ties] created by legal theories that have no basis in law.”

Housing policy experts are skeptical.

“It's cynical that they're eliminating a core fair housing right, and they're trying to paint it as an affordability measure because it just won't accomplish that,” Samberg-Champion said.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/economy/opportunity-zones-rural-america Jade Lozada Local officials tell NOTUS they haven’t seen investment dollars pour in. But they’re welcoming the coming changes to the tax program. Thu, 03 Sep 2026 09:50:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/economy/opportunity-zones-rural-america Montgomery County, Illinois, is roughly 700 square miles of sparsely populated land almost perfectly situated in between Springfield and St. Louis. It’s home to a Route 66 Welcome Center and, if a federal tax-incentive program is successful, is supposed to be a hotspot for new economic development.

But when Mike Plunkett, a county coordinator whose job it is to field those millions of dollars in investment, looks around, he wonders why a developer would come there.

“What do we have to offer that a million other Midwestern communities don’t have? We have very little competitive advantage,” Plunkett said.

In the eight years since the federal government implemented “opportunity zones,” a tax-incentive program that aims to spur economic development in selected low-income census tracts in the U.S., many counties have been experiencing what Montgomery has.

As the Treasury Department fields nominations from governors’ offices for the second round of opportunity zone investments this summer — tracts that will be eligible for tax-incentivized investments starting in January 2027 — communities are wondering whether they will actually experience the benefits of the program this time.

Plunkett said he has received only one inquiry about the program: from a construction gear manufacturer that set up shop in Montgomery County.

“There have been no other inquiries about the opportunity zone,” Plunkett added.

Multiple local officials from around the country reached by NOTUS said they weren’t aware their county was in an opportunity zone. “This is the first I’ve heard about this program,” said a rural county treasurer in Illinois, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “There isn’t any attraction to come here.”

The average rural zone attracted just $7.3 million in investment from 2018 to 2024, compared to $23.3 million for the average nonrural opportunity zone, according to a June paper by the Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis. In total, 16% of opportunity zone property was in rural areas, even though it makes up 38% of the U.S.’s 8,764 opportunity zones. In all, $112 billion has been invested using opportunity zone tax incentives.

There’s no comprehensive federal tracking of the impact of opportunity zones, but outside research has shown the program yielding mixed results. Opportunity zones have spurred the construction of 416,000 new homes, according to one paper from the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank that leads the pack in measuring the program’s impact. They have created new jobs, most of which go to residents from more affluent areas outside of the opportunity zone, reports another from the National Bureau of Economic Research. They have no significant effect on commercial investment and business activity, says a third by economists Naomi Feldman and Kevin Corinth, who is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Local economic development officials largely said they felt the incentives were not properly promoted.

Corey Proctor, the planning director for Forrest County, Mississippi, said his county needs new housing and has vast swathes of land he believes could attract industry, but local developers lack the requisite information to leverage the tax incentive.

Those developers could benefit from workshops that provide a rundown on how to invest in an opportunity zone, whether delivered by his office or the state or federal government, Proctor said.

“It’d be good to have everyone on the same page,” he said.

Last year’s budget reconciliation law does seek to remedy the rural investment disparity.

Opportunity zones allow taxpayers to invest capital gains income from stocks or property into funds that back development projects in low-income tracts. In return, investors can defer and reduce their tax payments on their gains. After 10 years invested in the fund, gains on the opportunity zone investment itself are completely tax free.

Starting next year, investors in newly created rural opportunity zone funds will receive a 30% reduction in their capital gains tax bill after five years invested in a rural opportunity zone, compared to 10% for nonrural zones.

Rural counties can’t offer the scores of people to fill shiny new apartment complexes and office buildings, or the transit infrastructure to support construction that their urban competitors for opportunity zone dollars can. They also typically lack the robust economic development teams with arsenals of resources for investors to utilize that many cities leverage.

That puts rural counties in a tough spot. With limited county staff and few established local investors, rural county leaders said attracting opportunity zone investment will require an unprecedented effort by local economic planners to read up on opportunity zones and pitch their own to developers — work that they currently don’t do or don’t know about.

Local officials told NOTUS that having extensive data on the impact of opportunity zone investments could help draw in new investors.

Currently, no one — neither the developers, nor the opportunity zone municipalities or the Treasury Department — bears the explicit responsibility to measure the program’s impact before changes in last year’s budget reconciliation law. Investors currently need only submit basic data on the value and the location of their property holdings on annual tax forms.

Under the latest budget law, however, investors must report the numbers of residential units held and full-time workers employed in the fund’s businesses, as well as the basic data on their investments. Congress allocated $15 million for the Treasury to produce annual reports enumerating opportunity zones’ housing and job creation, as well as less-frequent reports detailing the impact of investment on metrics such as poverty and unemployment rates and median family income.

“That would be on my wishlist for opportunity zone 2.0 is to really strengthen the reporting mechanisms so that communities truly can major those ROIs,” said Kersten Swinyard, the economic development director for Salt Lake County, Utah. “We’d love to be able to highlight these numbers. We just don’t have them.”

Localities that have successfully drawn investment do not have a clear picture of the program’s impact — or take pains to estimate it. Though she lacked impact data, Swinyard said opportunity zones were an undeniable success in Salt Lake County, where the tax incentive helped attract large logistics and industrial projects, as well as housing and commercial development.

“Opportunity zones can be either a useful way to channel investment to places that really need it or a tax shelter with high abuse potential, and the determining factor as to which side wins out is precisely the type of tracking and evaluation that is required, and that we've never seen quite enough of,” said Jared Bernstein, the chief economic adviser to then-President Joe Biden who co-authored the original 2015 paper proposing opportunity zones with Kevin Hassett, the current National Economic Council director.

The program’s impact is hard to grasp even on the ground and even in urban areas with more resources.

In Washington, D.C., which has raked in $1.2 billion in opportunity zone investment, the mayor’s office and developers are trying their own hands at data-gathering to paint a picture of the program that will keep investors coming back.

The mayor’s office cobbles together assessments through its building permitting process, conversations with developers about how much capital they’ve deployed and job estimates configured by the city’s tax revenue and licensing offices, said Nina Albert, the deputy mayor for economic planning and development.

RedBrick LMD, one of the largest private landowners in D.C., has hired a third-party firm to evaluate their opportunity zone investments for the purpose of pitching to impact investors.

Opportunity zone projects like those of RedBrick have transformed pockets of the city, particularly in Anacostia, Congress Heights and Barry Farm.

Aside a bend in the Anacostia River, facing the white arches of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge stretching to Navy Yard, RedBrick erected the Bridge District towers — a swanky mixed-income and mixed-use development with a plant wall in the lobby and a pool on the rooftop. A brewery and coffee shop sit on the ground floor.

The Bridge District — an opportunity zone project touted by Albert — went up in an area with little else, as the program intended. Bounded on one side by the river and treetops of Anacostia Park and the other by crisscrossing roadways, the closest major development visible from the roof is the Marine One hangar about two miles away.

Albert credits D.C.’s expansive tax incentives for developers beyond opportunity zones. There’s the federal New Markets Tax Credit Program, the District’s low-income-housing tax credit, and even a local tax incentive for opening grocery stores.

“It's surpassed our expectations,” Albert said of opportunity zones. “I wouldn't say it's our premier tool.”

RedBrick LMD managing partner Louis Dubin had a different take.

“Anything we may have done locally would be so de minimis it would really not have materially contributed. So I would attribute this all to opportunity zone,” the real-estate developer told NOTUS.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/2026-election/elizabeth-warren-housing-battleground-states Raymond Fernández The progressive who struck a deal with Republicans on housing affordability is rallying with Democrats in Georgia and North Carolina. Fri, 31 Jul 2026 21:00:40 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/2026-election/elizabeth-warren-housing-battleground-states Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts plans to campaign in two battleground states this weekend on the housing bill that recently became law, capitalizing on the fact that Republicans have struggled to fold it neatly into their messaging.

The Democrat played a key role in negotiating the major housing bill that took effect earlier in July. On Friday, she traveled to Georgia for several events across the state to support Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff. Warren is also expected to travel to North Carolina on Saturday, where she will campaign on behalf of Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s former governor and the Democratic candidate vying for retiring Sen. Thom Tillis’ seat.

That she’s able to tout legislation passed in a Republican-controlled Congress as a win is in part because of how it became law: President Donald Trump never signed the legislation and called it a “big yawn,” giving Democrats an opening to try to own it.

“Donald Trump took the legs out from underneath the Republicans,” Warren told NOTUS over the phone after speaking at a roundtable event with community leaders and advocates in Georgia. “He ran for office promising to lower costs on day one, and then turned around and said affordability is a hoax when Republicans and Democrats worked together to pass this bill to lower housing costs.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Warren will be the keynote speaker at Saturday’s North Carolina Democratic Party Unity Dinner, the party’s largest annual gathering in the state.

The Democrat, who was criticized during the bill negotiations by some lawmakers and stakeholders for leaving them out of the loop, is also trying to make her expertise on the bill a resource for other congressional candidates by briefing their campaigns on how to explain the housing package to voters.

“This is not a heavy lift for me,” Warren said. “Democrats across the country understand that the two big issues in this race are cost and corruption.”

By focusing on the housing package, particularly in states like Georgia and North Carolina, she said, lawmakers on the campaign trail can provide voters with “clear evidence that Democrats will deliver on their promises.”

Democrats face an uphill battle in their quest to flip control of the Senate this fall. For that to happen, Democrats need to net four seats in the chamber. Ossoff is one of the most vulnerable sitting Senate Democrats, and Cooper is running in North Carolina, one of the likeliest places for Democrats to pick up a seat.

In the meantime, Republicans’ campaign message on housing has been complicated by the fact that Trump never signed the bill. Republican lawmakers in some of the most competitive districts in the country are avoiding mention of the president’s involvement as they campaign.

The law is a product of the most comprehensive housing reform bill to come out of Congress in more than three decades. It includes a limit on institutional investors’ ownership of single-family homes, enforced through fines on corporations that own more than 350 units. It also modernizes federal housing programs and overhauls quality review standards to fast-track housing development.

The president had supported several versions of the bill, including the final one. In the end, however, he decided against signing it because Congress hasn’t passed the voter-ID bill that is top priority.

The president criticized the housing package, calling it a “Warren-centric housing bill,” which the lawmaker downplayed and called “a family-centric housing bill.”

“This new law is all about helping working families, but there's nothing in it for Donald Trump personally,” Warren said. “As a result, he's just not interested.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misdescribed Warren's campaign stops. She is campaigning as a surrogate for the Democratic candidates.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/housing/trump-republican-campaign-housing-bill Raymond Fernández “You could talk about the policy,” said one Republican operative. “You don’t have to talk about how it became law.” Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:13:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/housing/trump-republican-campaign-housing-bill President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign the housing bill passed by Congress has turned into a complicated political question for Republicans: How do you campaign on a legislative win that was rejected by the head of your party?

The legislation, which is the most significant housing package to come out of Congress in more than three decades and represents one of the biggest legislative victories of the year for Republicans, became law this month despite the president’s inaction. It’s making for some hard conversations with the voters, who are very attuned to the cost of living.

“[Housing is] one of the number one asks I have in my district,” Rep. Zach Nunn (R- Iowa) told NOTUS of issues constituents asked Congress to work on. “If the president didn’t want to sign it, that’s over to the president.”

“I’m glad that we stood firm and we had a veto-proof majority. And sometimes Republicans have to stand up to the president and say, ‘This is what our districts need.’”

The president endorsed several versions of the bill, including its final form. But he ultimately refused to sign it, saying instead that the Save America Act was the administration’s top priority and should be Congress’ too.

“I don’t speak for the president,” Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R- Pennsylvania), who represents a swing district that could help determine control of the House next year, told NOTUS when asked whether he believed voters would credit Republicans for the policy despite Trump’s calling the bill “a big yawn” relative to election security.

“I know my voters, my constituents. My electors are super excited about the package,” Bresnahan said.

The housing bill is aimed at fast-tracking housing development across the nation by removing some environmental and construction review standards and expanding how existing federal programs administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development use funds for construction. It also limits the number of single-family homes institutional investors can own.

Every step of passing the bill was a headache for Republicans. It got caught up in a monthslong standoff between the House and Senate. Some Republicans griped about the outsize role Democrats took in negotiating the package, which in the end passed with broad bipartisan support. And Trump oscillated in his support for at least one of the provisions in the bill.

Now, the careful dance Republicans have to do around it on the campaign trail has become another in a long line of headaches, when they’d widely expected an easy-to-sell legislative feat.

“Every House Republican can claim that they fought to have this bill passed because they voted for it, and so you know they’re the ones running, not President Trump,” a Republican operative told NOTUS, adding that the package is not the only affordability policy Republicans should message on. “You could talk about the policy. You don't have to talk about how it became law.”

Some Republicans running for reelection are doing exactly that.

Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership — a conservative nonprofit that nearly a hundred sitting lawmakers are part of — told NOTUS that Republicans' messaging on the package should be “localized” and that lawmakers should keep talking about “the fact that they voted, they passed the bill, and it became law.”

“The members of Main Street are back in their districts talking about the importance of this legislation and how it affects your day-to-day life. They’re not mentioning what the president said,” Chamberlain said.

Both Republican operatives told NOTUS that they believed people outside of D.C. are not aware of the president’s comments or his refusal to sign the bill.

Asked about Republican messaging on the legislation and Trump’s refusal to sign it, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) said the bill was a “huge” bipartisan policy win “on probably the most important aspect of affordability, which is housing.”

Pressed about the president’s role, Fitzpatrick — who holds another key seat the Republicans are trying to hold on to in order to keep the majority — said the president’s opinions were “his.”

“Overwhelming numbers of Democrats, Republicans in the House and Senate voted for it. Everybody’s got to be accountable for our actions,” Fitzpatrick said.

The White House did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.

Housing is a key part of the affordability conversation both parties say they want to address. The U.S. is currently facing a shortage of more than 5 million homes, according to Pew Research Center. A Gallup poll conducted in May found that only 25% of non-homeowners believe they will be able to buy a home in the next five years — the lowest percentage in more than a decade.

In the fight for control of the lower chamber, Democrats have also been campaigning on the bill. The day the president canceled the signing ceremony, more than 20 Democratic lawmakers held a rally outside the Capitol to demand the president to sign the legislation and accused him of holding it hostage.

Now, vulnerable House Republicans are downplaying that the bill became law without Trump’s signature.

“I’m less worried about the process and more about the actual specifics of the bill,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York), who is running in a district won by former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, told NOTUS. He touted the bill as a Republican-led effort.

Some Republicans are even choosing not to speak about the package at all.

When asked about the bill and the president, Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colorado) said: “Oh, well, let’s back up even before that. Let’s go back to the Working Families Tax Cut.”
]]> https://washingtonsun.com/housing/housing-bill-trump-set-to-become-law Raymond Fernández The bipartisan legislation is aimed at speeding up housing development across the country. Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:35:11 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/housing/housing-bill-trump-set-to-become-law Congress’ marquee housing legislation aimed at increasing the country’s housing supply is set to become law at midnight — without President Donald Trump’s signature.

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump, who could still change his mind and sign the legislation, posted on Friday.

The bill, known as the “21st Century ROAD to Housing,” is the first major housing legislation to come out of Congress in more than three decades and represents one of the biggest legislative achievements this year for both chambers. Trump repeatedly pushed for the legislation — before abruptly canceling a signing ceremony and calling the bill a “yawn” relative to election reforms he wants passed.

His indifference to the housing package could complicate things for Republicans, who were eager to address cost of living as part of their agenda. It was supposed to be a policy win that they could easily tout on the trail, once they got it through the complicated process of getting the votes for it.

Instead of becoming law with fanfare, the legislation is expected to become law through Trump’s inaction for the 10 days after Congress presented him with the bill. It is on track to avoid a pocket veto because Congress was technically in session for that period of time.

The president had long outlined the bill as a priority. In his January State of the Union address, he called on Congress to limit institutional investors' ability to purchase single-family homes, which the bill addressed.

The legislation establishes a limit on large investors that own more than 350 single-family homes, enforced through fines by the federal government.

It also requires local governments to loosen some environmental review standards to fast track housing development, raises the cap on community banks’ lending ability and allows federal funds administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to be used for the construction of new homes.

Altogether, the legislation includes Senate and House priorities and has bipartisan backing.

It was also endorsed by the White House, through its countless iterations, several times.

A senior White House official even described the package as “the best path forward to deliver an affordability win for the administration [and] for congressional Republicans” to NOTUS after the Senate passed its first version in early May.

After the president canceled the signing ceremony for the bill, which was caught up in a Senate-versus-House standoff for several months, lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R- Louisiana) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R- South Dakota), were caught off guard.

Trump began echoing what some Republicans had said privately throughout the negotiations: that the package was a “[Sen. Elizabeth] Warren centric housing bill.” 

Warren (D-Massachusetts), who spearheaded the Senate’s push on the bill as the ranking member of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, immediately seized the opportunity to tout Democratic lawmakers’ commitment to address the housing crisis the country is facing.

“Donald Trump may not care, but Democrats do,” Warren said on Capitol Hill in late June, shortly after the signing ceremony for the bill was canceled.

“We're not in the majority in the House. We're not in the majority in the Senate. We sure as hell don't control the White House, but nonetheless we helped push through the biggest housing bill to lower costs, to help renters and to help homeowners.”
]]> https://washingtonsun.com/housing/trump-housing-bill-congress-signing Raymond Fernández, Igor Bobic, Al Weaver, Stephen Neukam, Reese Gorman The president trashed the bill a day after Congress passed it. Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:54:09 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/housing/trump-housing-bill-congress-signing President Donald Trump canceled a signing ceremony for housing legislation scheduled for Wednesday, arguing that it should take a back seat to voting restrictions he wants Congress to move on.

“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

The housing legislation, which seeks to speed up housing development across the country, was passed by both chambers this week and seemed to be on a glide path to getting the president’s signature. He had repeatedly endorsed the bill.

Congress spent months trying to pass it, and finally reached a breakthrough deal that allowed it to pass the Senate on Monday and the House on Tuesday. Republicans had been particularly eager to incorporate it into their midterm messaging.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Senate Republicans have repeatedly said they don't have the votes to pass the SAVE America Act and don't have support to change the Senate rules to get rid of the filibuster in order to pass it.

Trump began trashing the housing bill on Wednesday morning.

“The Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren centric housing bill, which is of minor importance compared to lower interest rates, and even FISA, pales in comparison to passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump said in a separate post.

Warren, a Democrat, played a major negotiating role on the bill.

“Look, this is just more evidence that Donald Trump really doesn't care about how hard American families are struggling,” Warren told reporters on Wednesday. “The House and the Senate have worked together to develop a bill on a bipartisan basis that would help bring down housing costs, and Donald Trump has turned his back on them.”

According to a person close to the White House, Trump's opposition to the housing package was less about the legislation itself than about broader frustrations with the Senate.

The person said Trump woke up Wednesday upset with the Senate following a vote on war powers and what he viewed as Senate Majority Leader John Thune's reluctance to advance the SAVE America Act.

"The bill is just collateral damage right now for his overall frustrations with Thune and the Senate," the person said.

Among Republicans on Capitol Hill, there was at least some immediate frustration.

“He’s having a fucking tantrum,” one annoyed senior Republican lawmaker told NOTUS.

Republicans had spent months going back and forth between the House and the Senate, working through several different drafts of the legislation to try to come to an agreement.

“Trump listed housing affordability as one of his top agenda items in his State of the Union address,” a senior Senate Republican aide told NOTUS. “His own White House team helped devise this legislative push. And the president personally doused it with gasoline and lit it on fire.”

News of the canceled signing ceremony broke just hours before Trump was scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill for the event. Publicly, some Republicans downplayed the news.

“I don't have any observation,” said Thune, who was speaking on the floor as Trump posted, when asked about his decision not to sign it.

Speaker Mike Johnson said the bill would be delayed because the president needed “a little bit more of that window of time,” and he believed Trump would sign the bill in the next 10 days.

“The housing bill is a great product ... it did have a lot of Elizabeth Warren's preferences and policy provisions in the original Senate bill. That's why we spent months and months doing the tug-of-war, and we wound up having 85% of the final product is conservative priorities and policies," Johnson said.

To satisfy Trump’s desire to pass the SAVE America Act, Johnson said House Republicans are putting together a third reconciliation package that would include election-security-related measures. Republicans have used the reconciliation process twice already to pass party-line funding priorities, but some GOP lawmakers have questioned the odds of pulling off a third reconciliation package.

Rep. French Hill (R-Arkansas), who led the House’s effort on the bill, told NOTUS moments after the ceremony was canceled that Congress had just delivered on one of the president’s top priorities.

“I look forward to the bill being signed. He's the one who picked the date. He's obviously changed his mind on what he wants to sign,” Hill said.

Asked if he was frustrated, Hill replied: “I don't pick the date when to sign legislation.”

—
Editor's Note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/housing/senate-passes-road-to-housing-act-bill-elizabeth-warren-private-equity Raymond Fernández Top House lawmakers dropped their opposition to the Senate’s bill after securing some changes to the legislation. Mon, 22 Jun 2026 22:49:59 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/housing/senate-passes-road-to-housing-act-bill-elizabeth-warren-private-equity After months of a standoff between the Senate and the House, the upper chamber passed legislation aimed at increasing the supply of housing across the country in a 85-5 vote Monday.

The bill, known as the “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” now heads to the House, which is expected to send it to President Donald Trump’s desk in the coming days. After months of negotiations, the bill includes top priorities of the Senate, the House and the president, and would be one of the most significant legislative achievements during Trump's second term.

The Senate was able to proceed with the vote after Sens. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), the top lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee, struck a compromise with Reps. French Hill (R-Arkansas) and Maxine Waters (D-California), the top lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee.

According to congressional aides, Hill and Waters dropped their opposition to the Senate package after Scott and Warren agreed to House lawmakers’ requests.

Waters, whose office did not respond to a request for comment, wanted stronger tenant protections and stricter congressional oversight over the Rental Assistance Demonstration program, which allows public housing authorities to receive federal funding for affordable housing development and preservation.

She also wanted changes to the Senate's Build Now Act, which awards Community Development Block Grants — federal grants to incentivize affordable housing production — to cities and towns with low housing supply and high rates of homebuilding.

In the Senate’s final version of the legislation, the CDBG-Disaster Recovery program, which provides federal funds for localities hit by natural disasters, is reauthorized for three years, a reduction that Hill requested before both chambers reached the final agreement, according to a congressional aide.

The bill loosens environmental review standards for certain small housing developments to speed up construction, and it increases the cap for community bank investment in housing and local development projects, a key priority for House Republicans.

It also includes a key priority for Trump and Warren: a limit on private equity’s control over housing. One of the most controversial elements in some of the earlier versions of the legislation was language that would have required institutional investors to sell build-to-rent properties seven years after construction. After backlash, lawmakers ultimately removed the requirement and narrowed the provision to place fines on corporations that own more than 350 single-family homes, with exemptions for new construction of single-family long-term rentals.

“Never before has the United States Congress had the courage to stand up to private equity in any industry. To do it in housing is a reminder of the importance of maintaining housing, not as a corporate investment, but as a place for families to live,” Warren, who played an outsized role in the negotiations, told NOTUS shortly after the final agreement was revealed.

House negotiators agreed to the investor limit, and the modifications appeased industry groups that opposed the forced sale provision.

“What originally [was] there was going to do harm, so we feel like that part has been resolved,” said Sharon Wilson Géno, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council, which, like dozens of other housing groups, opposed the original language passed by the Senate in March.

With Trump’s signature, the bill would become the first major piece of housing legislation signed in at least three decades. It would also be a massive policy win for the Trump administration as it messages on affordability ahead of the midterm elections this year.

“This is such a great opportunity for the congressional Republicans and the president to get this as a win on a critical issue that's going to be on the ballot in November,” a senior administration official told NOTUS back in May of the need for final passage.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/housing/bill-pulte-dni-fhfa-director Raymond Fernández Lawmakers questioned his ability to keep running the Federal Housing Finance Agency as he takes on the acting DNI role. Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:51:31 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/housing/bill-pulte-dni-fhfa-director Bill Pulte’s lack of intelligence credentials has been the central point of contention in the debate over his taking on the role of acting director of national intelligence.

But lawmakers, including some Republicans, say that it’s an open question whether he can continue to do his job as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency as well, as President Donald Trump has said Pulte plans to do.

“I don't see how he can possibly do both jobs,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told NOTUS.

While Republicans defend Pulte’s record on housing, some were unclear on how he would multitask.

“I have no idea,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) when NOTUS asked how Pulte would manage the dual roles. “I don't know how to answer that. The president says he'll do both jobs, so presumably he'll do both jobs.”

Trump announced that Pulte would take the acting DNI role earlier this month. On Wednesday, he announced Pulte would be in the role by June 19, faster than previously anticipated.

Pulte’s appointment has become a sticking point in negotiations to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on Friday.

That’s in part due to his work as director at FHFA, where he has gone after some of Trump’s political enemies by accusing them of mortgage fraud. That track record has raised concerns for Democrats.

“He is qualified for neither job. He should be out in both jobs. He never should have been the nation's chief housing official, and he is the most unqualified nominee for DNI in our nation's history, and maybe the most unqualified for any position of trust in American history,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), told NOTUS.

FHFA did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.

The backlash has been intense enough that Trump went out of his way last week to clarify that Pulte was not a “permanent” choice for the DNI role.

Still, on Wednesday he reaffirmed his choice as he looks for a permanent DNI replacement.

“The President chooses the best and most talented people to serve in his Cabinet. That is why this Administration has achieved record successes for the American people,” Davis Ingle, a spokesperson for the White House, told NOTUS in a statement. “Bill Pulte is a great selection and he will do a great job on behalf of the American people.”

As director of the FHFA — an independent regulatory agency that oversees Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Bank System — Pulte oversees institutions that collectively provide trillions in funding to U.S. mortgage markets and financial institutions. 

He overhauled the boards of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac within days of being sworn in, cut staff, and pushed through a credit score overhaul that the banking industry had sought for years.

His fans in Congress defend his ability to multitask between that role and that of DNI.

“He's an extraordinarily smart person and can do multiple things.” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who said he has known Pulte for two decades, told NOTUS. “He's built a great team, which is what you do when you're an executive. You make sure you have great people around you.”

Some Republican senators deferred to the White House when asked about Pulte’s ability to fulfill his duties while emphasizing that the DNI role was interim.

Asked if someone could successfully do a good job in two separate agencies, Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) told NOTUS: “Marco Rubio did.”
]]> https://washingtonsun.com/housing/bondi-blames-acting-ag-todd-blanche-for-epstein-files-controversies Stephen Neukam The former attorney general also refused to answer questions about President Donald Trump in an interview with lawmakers on Friday, Democrats said. Fri, 29 May 2026 18:43:47 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/housing/bondi-blames-acting-ag-todd-blanche-for-epstein-files-controversies Former Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to answer questions about President Donald Trump’s connection to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and sought to blame her replacement, Todd Blanche, for the handling of the release of the information surrounding the case during a closed-door interview Friday on Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers said.

Bondi, who left the Justice Department last month, spoke voluntarily with the House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into Epstein. Democratic lawmakers said the former attorney general was not willing to discuss Trump, instead repeatedly naming Todd Blanche, now the acting attorney general, as the person overseeing the release of the Epstein files.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California), the top Democrat on the committee, said Bondi asserted that Blanche “was managing the entire investigation.” Based on Bondi’s comments, Democrats said Friday afternoon that they will request that Blanche speak with the Oversight Committee. Garcia said lawmakers were willing to “force a subpoena and try to get the votes, ” which would require the support of a majority of committee members.

“All of the mistakes that we saw — the redactions, not protecting survivors — she continues to push that back onto the acting AG Todd Blanche,” Garcia told reporters during a break in questioning Friday.

Blanche was deputy attorney general under Bondi, and previously represented Trump personally.

Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), chairman of the Oversight Committee, did not speak with reporters after the interview Friday.

Bondi was ousted at the Justice Department last month after falling out of favor with Trump. During her tenure as attorney general, she faced intense bipartisan criticism for her handling of the release of the Epstein files.

A source familiar with the interview told NOTUS that Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general at the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, was present at Bondi’s interview on Friday. Garcia said “someone from the DOJ, a high-ranking official, is also acting now as personal counsel to Ms. Bondi.”

The voluntary interview with the committee on Friday meant Bondi was not under oath, and it was not held publicly. Democrats are calling on committee Republicans to release the video of the interview, instead of just a written transcript.

“It is a shame and a disservice to the American people that this interview is not being recorded, videotaped and then released to the American public,” Garcia said.
]]> https://washingtonsun.com/congress/house-passes-housing-reform-after-trump-blessing Raymond Fernández The bill is now headed back to the Senate, where key lawmakers say “there’s still work to be done.” Wed, 20 May 2026 21:02:04 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/congress/house-passes-housing-reform-after-trump-blessing With President Donald Trump’s stamp of approval, the House overwhelmingly passed its version of a housing bill Wednesday, softening the Senate’s proposed restrictions around large-scale landlords and developers.

The bill, passed 396-13, now goes back to the upper chamber, which passed its own housing bill two months ago — also with Trump’s support. The House bill stripped out a controversial provision from the Senate version that would force big developers to sell off homes built as rentals to families after seven years. The policy faced fierce backlash in the House and among industry groups that aggressively lobbied against it, arguing that it would hamper investment.

The package, which would fast-track housing development by removing regulatory requirements and overhauling federal housing programs to better support the construction of new homes, is a key agenda item for Republicans and Trump ahead of the midterm elections.

Housing policy is also a rare spot for bipartisanship in this Congress. But the reform effort had been stalled for weeks due to disagreements between the Senate, House and White House.



Trump wanted limits on institutional investors’ ownership of single-family homes. So did the Senate. The House didn’t include them until this week — finally earning the White House’s stamp of approval after it mirrored the Senate’s language on private equity ownership of single-family homes.

The House also added prevailing wage protections to the package to satisfy labor unions and removed language included in the Senate-passed bill that would have required large developers to sell build-to-rent properties seven years after construction.

House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill characterized the changes as “modest amendments” that preserve the president’s vision and the Senate’s intent.

“We listened to public comment, immense public comment over the last few weeks, and we modified old Section 901 of the institutional investor ban,” said Hill, an Arkansas Republican.

House lawmakers said they had to amend the Senate version in order to get the bill passed in their chamber.

“It speaks positively about our committee, how we work in a bipartisan way,” Republican Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska, who is a member of the committee and worked on the bill, told NOTUS ahead of the vote. “We see an opportunity to deliver for the American people … put together a truly bipartisan and hopefully bicameral product.”

California Rep. Maxine Waters, who led the effort from the House Democratic side, did not respond to NOTUS’ questions on Capitol Hill.

“Democracy demands debate and discussion,” Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who was also heavily involved in the talks, told NOTUS ahead of the Wednesday vote. Asked about the amendment made by the House, he said the collaboration between the two parties is a statement that “Congress can still work.”

Despite the administration’s recent endorsement of the House package, its future is uncertain in the Senate. Sens. Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, the Republican and Democrat who spearheaded the Senate’s version that passed in March, said in a joint statement Wednesday that “there’s still work to be done.”

“The Senate passed a strong, bipartisan housing bill because families across this country need relief,” they said. “We are committed to continuing to work with the White House and our colleagues in the House on a housing bill that can pass the Senate and get to the President’s desk.”

Hill said the president “would sign” the House’s bill, but that consensus is needed in both chambers.

“The ball is now in the court of public opinion,” he added. “I'd be willing to participate in any conversation at any level of the federal government to see if we can move this forward.”

At least 11 major industry groups, including the National Multifamily Housing Council and the National Association of Home Builders, urged the Senate to pass the legislation as-is. Housing advocates also celebrated the passage.

“We have reached the moment for both chambers to find common ground so that a final package can be sent to President Trump for his signature,” Dennis Shea, executive vice president and chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy, told NOTUS in a statement.]]>