Congressional Renters Caucus calls for more federal rental assistance

The Congressional Renters Caucus is encouraging House Appropriations Committee leaders to expand funding for federal rental assistance and other housing programs as the country faces a shortage of affordable housing.

More than 45 million families in the US rent, according to estimates from the National Multifamily Housing Council. Many members of the Renters Caucus, launched by Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) last summer, represent districts where more than half of residents are renters.

Rents have soared nearly 30% since the start of the pandemic, with nearly two-thirds of that increase occurring in 2021, according to for a recent report by Zillow real estate. Almost half of renters spent more than 30% of their income on rent in 2022, according to Moody’s Analytics, classifying them as “rent overburdened.”

In a letter shared exclusively with The Hill, Democratic lawmakers called on their colleagues to expand rental assistance programs, including funding for housing choice vouchers, renew existing project-based rental assistance contracts, fund maintenance and preservation of public housing and strengthen renter protections to address the “unprecedented crisis” facing renters.

“Across the country, our voters are struggling to find and keep a home in an increasingly unaffordable rental housing market due to insufficient federal rental assistance, an inadequate supply of high-quality, affordable rental properties, and additional unnecessary, often discriminatory, barriers that prevent millions of Americans from obtaining safe, affordable, high-quality rental housing,” the lawmakers wrote.

Record-high housing prices are increasing barriers to homeownership and forcing more people to rent, especially for young first-time homebuyers, and a growing number of Americans cannot afford housing. A record 653,000 people were experiencing homelessness last year as housing costs rose and pandemic-era assistance declined, a recent report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found.

Gomez told The Hill that the Renters Caucus is pushing to reduce housing costs, increase housing supply and remove barriers to fair and affordable rent “because it is completely unacceptable that the federal government is not investing all the resources it can to address the housing crisis.” .”

The California Democrat represents parts of Los Angeles where nearly two-thirds of households rent, according to RentCafe. Nearly 4 in 10 renters in Los Angeles worry about becoming homeless, according to the Quality of Life Index 2024 released last month by the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, which also found that concerns about the high cost of living had driven resident satisfaction to its lowest level since they began the survey nine years ago.

Gomez told The Hill that she founded the Renters Caucus “because as more and more Americans lose home ownership and are forced to rent, we need to start putting renters at the center of federal housing policy.”

“In one of the richest countries in the world, every person should have access to a safe and affordable place to live, but unfortunately, federal housing assistance falls far short,” said Gomez.