By now it is no secret that the housing crisis is on the minds of many voters going to the polls in November. The frontrunning presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, agree that the crisis must be urgently addressed. But their ideas greatly differ on how to confront it, with a few exceptions.
Here’s a look at what the presidential candidates are proposing.
Increasing the Supply of Housing
According to one poll, 74 percent of Americans surveyed believe that the lack of affordable homes is a significant problem in the United States. Both candidates say they plan to increase the housing supply.
The Harris campaign released its first-outlined housing proposal in August, followed by a longer economic policy book in September. The campaign calls for the construction of 3 million new housing units over the next four years to drive affordability, arguing that increased supply “will make rents and mortgages cheaper.” To achieve this, the campaign proposes a first-ever tax incentive to build starter homes for first-time homebuyers, an expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (also known as LIHTC) to build affordable rental housing, a new tax credit to build and rehabilitate homes for low-income residents, and a $40 billion innovation fund to support the design and construction of affordable rental and housing solutions.
The latter initiative includes repurposing certain federal lands for new housing developments (echoing what the current White House had asked federal agencies to assess in July). This is a rare point of agreement with the campaign run by Trump. Last month, Trump told an audience at the Economic Club of New York that his administration would earmark that land for “large-scale housing construction. . . . These zones will be ultra-low tax and ultra-low regulations—one of the great small business job creation programs.”
The Harris campaign proposes removing regulatory “red tape” to bring down construction costs and get homes to market sooner, as does Trump, who has repeatedly touted deregulation along the campaign trail.
Trump’s campaign website’s messaging largely defers to the GOP platform for its positions on housing, which offers few concrete proposals to address housing issues such as the housing shortage, beyond a brief mention of deporting undocumented immigrants to decrease demand.
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, told TIME that the former president would also ban mortgages for undocumented immigrants and “stop the unstainable [sic] invasion of illegal aliens which is driving up housing costs.”
The Harris campaign’s proposals, by contrast, have been lauded as “historic” by the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities—a national nonprofit network of public housing authorities—and the National Housing Conference—a coalition of affordable housing stakeholders—called the campaign “the first presidential ticket led by two bonafide housing advocates.”
Accessible Homeownership
To address the bleak reality of millions of Americans being priced out of homeownership, the Harris campaign proposes $25,000 downpayment support for first-time homebuyers to complement its plans to increase the supply of starter homes. The proposal aims to reach more than 4 million first-time homebuyers over four years.
Harris appears to continue to carry the baton from President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, which also proposed new tax credits for first-time homeowners.
Conversely, the Trump campaign—again deferring to the GOP platform—vaguely pronounces that Republicans will “reduce mortgage rates by slashing inflation” and “promote homeownership through tax incentives and support for first-time buyers,” without offering details as to how the party would tackle either.
Tenant Protections
The Harris campaign explicitly addresses tenant protections in two ways:
- By pursuing the “Stop Predatory Investing Act” to remove federal tax breaks to corporate investors who own 50 or more single-family rental homes.
- By pursuing the “Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act,” which would crack down on rent-setting data firms that “collude” with corporate landlords.
The Stop Predatory Investing Act, introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), removes key tax benefits for major private investors with 50 or more single-family rental homes—like Wall Street investors or other remote landlords—which, according to Brown, “will help prevent corporate landlords from driving up local housing prices.”
The Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act, introduced in January by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Peter Welch (D-VT), would prevent the use of price-setting algorithms and software to coordinate rental housing prices, as well as prohibit price coordination between two or more landlords.
Trump’s platform does not mention tenant protections, but as president, he did sign a federal evictions moratorium during the height of the pandemic to keep Americans housed during the health emergency. However, as the national anti-gentrification and anti-displacement coalition Right to the City Alliance argued at the time, the moratorium was “intentionally weak” and left generous loopholes for landlords to continue eviction filings anyway—a “failed policy” that the incoming Biden administration extended on Day 1, much to the group’s dismay.
And, given the former president’s history as a landlord—including systemic violations of the Fair Housing Act—it is unlikely that a second Trump presidency would extend any protections toward renters. To the contrary, if he were to adopt the housing policy proposals laid out for him by The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—which includes gutting the Department of Housing and Urban Development and reversing fair housing policies enacted under the Obama and Biden administrations to protect women and marginalized groups—renters would be in an even more precarious situation than they are now, with far less protection.
Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) has expressed support for cracking down on corporate housing investors in the past, but this too he tied to immigration, an issue the Trump campaign has focused on as a leading cause of the housing crisis: “I look around and say, ‘What are we doing when we’re letting the Communist Chinese Party buy up homes that should be going to Ohio citizens?’ It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Rent Control
While Harris’s campaign does not mention rent caps in its housing plan, she pledged to “cap unfair rent increases” at a rally in Atlanta, just two weeks after President Biden proposed a rent cap at 5 percent per year on landlords with 50 or more rental units. Such a cap would affect half of all rental properties nationwide.
However the plan takes shape if Harris is elected, it would require congressional approval. When asked by Vox if a President Harris would use her executive authority to limit rent hikes, the Harris campaign did not respond.
Meanwhile, Trump has been evasive about the question altogether. When asked by a voter at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota about bringing down rent and housing prices, Trump, phoning in to “Fox & Friends,” replied, “We’re going to drill, baby, drill, we’re gonna bring down the cost of energy,” and proceeded to make incoherent statements about energy, China, and bacon prices.
Homelessness
Reducing homelessness has been identified as one of the top two housing-related issues for candidates to address, as more than 650,000 people in America experience homelessness on any given night, and the housing crisis threatens to push many more Americans into homelessness.
The Harris campaign’s housing plan does not explicitly address homelessness but instead directs its efforts upstream, with proposals to expand rental assistance, “boost housing supply for those without homes, enforce fair housing laws, and make sure corporate landlords can’t use taxpayer dollars to unfairly rip off renters.” This approach appears thematic for Harris who, as vice president, has tackled homelessness as part and parcel of her larger response to affordable housing, like last May, when she announced $290 million to address homelessness—including to support shelters and homelessness prevention programs—out of a $5.5 billion funding package to boost affordable housing.
Trump’s campaign outlines more explicit proposals: His presidential platform Agenda47 states that his presidency would “ban urban camping, offering violators the option to either receive treatment and rehabilitation or face arrest.” He will also premiere “tent cities” where “the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified” by doctors including psychiatrists, social workers, and drug rehab specialists.
With specific regard to homeless veterans, the broader “Trump Republican Platform” proposes ending “luxury housing and taxpayer benefits for illegal immigrants” and reapplying “those savings to shelter and treat homeless veterans.”
Shelterforce will update this page as additional housing policies are outlined by the candidates.
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