Two major bipartisan housing packages move Congress closer to the most significant federal housing reforms in decades.
In late 2025 and early this year, Congress took historic steps toward bipartisan housing reform. Two major pieces of legislation — The Housing for the 21st Century Act and the Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act — have advanced through their respective chambers. If enacted, these bills would represent the most significant federal housing reform in decades, reshaping housing supply, affordability, and homeownership opportunities nationwide.
Origins & Legislative Timeline
ROAD to Housing Act (Senate)
The ROAD to Housing Act was shaped through bipartisan leadership in the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in summer 2025. The bill passed out of committee unanimously — with the first comprehensive housing markup in over a decade — and was initially included as an amendment to the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) before being removed and reintroduced as standalone legislation.
Sponsors, including Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), framed the bill as a response to decades of federal housing policies that failed to keep pace with rising costs and housing demand. Senate leadership has since signaled the bill could return to the floor for a full vote in the coming weeks.
Housing for the 21st Century Act (House)
The Housing for the 21st Century Act serves as the House counterpart to the ROAD to Housing Act, with overlapping provisions and shared goals. The House Financial Services Committee marked up the bill in late 2025, advancing it by a nearly unanimous vote. In February 2026, the full House overwhelmingly passed the legislation. Both bills now must be reconciled through bicameral negotiations before they can advance and become law.
What’s in These Bills: Key Provisions Impacting PCRG Members
Although each bill is comprehensive, a few shared themes stand out for affordable housing, homeownership support, and related policy work:
Expanding Housing Supply & Reducing Regulatory Barriers
Both bills include reforms intended to accelerate housing production by streamlining environmental reviews, encouraging model zoning reforms, and providing planning and technical assistance to state and local governments. These provisions aim to reduce the time and cost of housing development and support a broader mix of housing types — including duplexes, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), and manufactured housing.
Modernizing Federal Housing Programs
The Housing for the 21st Century Act modernizes long-standing federal programs like HOME Investment Partnerships by expanding eligible uses and streamlining requirements to make funds more flexible for local governments and communities. The ROAD to Housing Act similarly updates key control measures while strengthening oversight and coordination across federal housing programs.
Finance & Capital Flow
Both bills propose increasing the public welfare investment cap for banks from 15% to 20%, allowing financial institutions to direct more capital toward affordable housing and community development projects, including those supported by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). This change could unlock billions of dollars in additional private investment for housing construction and preservation.
Manufactured & Affordable Homeownership Innovations
The bills also include reforms to remove outdated barriers to manufactured housing, such as eliminating permanent chassis requirements — rules that require homes to stay on a fixed metal frame, limiting where and how they can be placed — and expanding access to affordable small-dollar mortgages. These provisions aim to strengthen homeownership pathways, particularly in rural and underserved communities.
Key Differences Between the Bills
While the two bills share many objectives and overlapping text, there are notable differences that matter for advocacy.
Regulatory Performance & Funding Structures
One notable distinction involves performance-based funding. The Housing for the 21st Century does not tie allocations for programs like Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to housing production benchmarks. In contrast, the ROAD to Housing Act links certain funding metrics to local housing production goals.
Program Scope & Emphasis
While both bills draw from dozens of previously introduced proposals, the Housing for the 21st Century Act incorporates a broader range of modernization efforts across planning, design standards, manufactured housing and mortgage access. Other provisions — like enhanced reporting requirements for HUD’s Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration or specific tenant protections appear in only one of the bills.
Whole-Home Repairs: A Pilot in ROAD to Housing
One of the most closely watched provisions in the ROAD to Housing Act — but not in the 21st Century Act — is a Whole Homes Repairs pilot program. The proposal would establish a five-year HUD pilot providing grants and forgivable loans to low-and moderate-income homeowners and small landlords to address critical health and safety not covered by existing federal programs.
The pilot is modeled after Pennsylvania’s Whole Home Repairs program, which has gained national attention as a scalable approach to home preservation.
These differences will be key points in bicameral negotiations as Congress moves toward finalizing a single housing package.
What’s Next?
With the Housing for the 21st Century Act already passed by the House — and the Senate preparing for further action on its housing package, Congress is entering a critical phase. If the Senate passes its version of the housing bill this week, and it differs significantly from the House version, the two chambers will need to negotiate the terms of one final housing bill that both chambers can pass. The resulting package could then move to the president’s desk for signature.
Why this Matters for PCRG Members
Homeownership Access: Expanded financing tools, like flexible financing and small-dollar mortgage pilots, as well as regulatory reforms aim to make homeownership more attainable for first-time and lower-income buyers.
Program Flexibility: Updates to HOME, CDBG, and bank investment caps could provide communities and local housing initiatives with greater autonomy and access to new resources.
Supply-Side Gains: Reducing regulatory barriers and incentivizing production supports long-term affordability, which are critical for addressing rising costs that affect both renters and buyers.
PCRG will continue tracking these bills and sharing alerts on key votes and opportunities for members to engage with federal legislators as negotiations move forward.