U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) wants the country to invest $500 billion in affordable housing, take new measures to prevent landlords from price-fixing and remove zoning barriers that stymie housing construction.

Balint has signed on to several bills since she was elected to Congress in 2022. But the housing bill, introduced on Monday, is her most ambitious so far, said her communications director, Sophie Pollock. The complex proposal takes aim at many of the forces that are pushing housing out of reach for middle- and lower-income people in the U.S.

“So many Vermont families face the crushing burden of the housing crisis,” Balint said in a statement about her bill, which she dubbed the Community Housing Act, or CHA. “CHA offers creative solutions and big, bold investments. "Hundreds of billions of dollars in housing investments. Because that’s what’s needed.”



Before heading to Congress, Balint served for eight years in the Vermont Statehouse, where she advocated for affordable housing. Many of the factors that are making it difficult for most people to buy or rent a home in Vermont are problems in other states, too.

According to Balint’s bill, the average rent in the U.S. increased 24 percent between 2020 and 2023, and more than half of low- and moderate-income people with mortgages now spend between 30 and 50 percent of their income on their home payments. Her bill calls for $44.5 billion in new spending in each fiscal year from 2024 to 2033.

“States can’t do this alone,” Seth Leonard, managing director of community development at Vermont Housing Finance Association, said on Monday. He joined Balint at a news conference she held on Monday in Bellows Falls. VHFA administers several federal housing programs.

"As we transition into a world without [federal COVID-19 funding] available, more federal investment is going to be critical," Leonard said in an interview.

Balint is also asking her colleagues in Congress to support a housing trust fund that would provide a dedicated and permanent source of funding for affordable housing, as well as a variety of other funding structures to help close the gap between what people earn and what they spend for a home.

Her bill calls for new real estate and property management software that would help antitrust enforcers prevent price-fixing in the rental housing markets. According to ProPublica, dozens of tenants signed on to a antitrust lawsuit in 2022 that accuses software company RealPage of helping landlords to collude in order to raise rents.

The Vermont legislature has been working for the past few years to remove local ordinances that create obstacles to home construction, and Balint would like to do something similar on a national scale. Her bill proposes the creation of a HUD zoning office that would streamline local zoning and improve community development in the areas of sustainability, fair housing and local efficiency.
The bill has 15 cosponsors, Pollock said.

The price of building new housing in Vermont has doubled since 2018, Leonard said. In response, the Scott administration and lawmakers have directed hundreds of millions of federal COVID-19 money toward affordable housing.

“But barriers to construction have gone up so much that the increase in resources year over year hasn’t kept up,” Leonard said.

“She is trying to close those gaps,” he said of Balint. “These types of federal programs are in some cases tried and true, and she’s also proposing new investment areas.”