Housing for the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, as someone who grew up in the Old Colony Housing Projects in South Boston, Massachusetts, and as a cofounder of the Affordable Housing Caucus along with Reverend Emanuel Cleaver, Greg Meeks, and Ritchie Torres, I am proud to join my colleagues, French Hill from Arkansas; the gentlewoman from California, Maxine Waters; Chairman Flood; and Reverend Emanuel Cleaver from Kansas City in rising in support of this bill, which while it does not solve every issue we have today with housing in this country, it does a lot.

It stops the commoditization of housing by real estate companies and private equity firms that would compete with families in acquiring their first home.

I realize it took a lot of work across the aisle. I congratulate our colleagues in the Senate, as well, for the work that they have done. We have got to do a lot more. We have got to bring the cost of housing down, and we have got to increase the supply of housing. We are about 7 million units short here--7 million homes short in the United States.

This is a good start. It is a good start, and it is a collaboration between Republicans and Democrats on one of those elements of the American Dream that is undeniable and that is shared in red States as well as blue States.

Again, I congratulate all of my colleagues on working together on this. It shows you what we can do in this country when we work together. I look forward to the next iteration of this bill, as well.

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