Employed and Homeless in America

How bipartisan lawmakers are addressing the affordable housing crisis

by OLIVIA ROCKEMAN

To afford a modest one-bedroom rental home in the United States today, the average minimum wage employee must work 97 hours per week, the equivalent of two and a half full-time jobs. It’s no wonder, then, that a growing number of working Americans are cost-burdened, housing insecure, or homeless.

Employment no longer guarantees stable shelter, especially given the limited supply of affordable housing across the country. Between 40% and 60% of people experiencing homelessness nationwide have jobs, according to The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, an independent federal agency that was shut down earlier this year.

Other working people are housing insecure, a complex experience that includes being forced to move, consistently being unable to afford housing, or living in poor-quality housing conditions, according to the Urban Institute, a nonprofit economic research organization. That’s in part because wage growth isn’t keeping up with the cost of living. In 2022, median rents were 21% higher than they were in 2001, while renters’ incomes rose just 2% over the same period, according to a study from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Affordability challenges are particularly acute for women, who hold a larger share of minimum wage jobs and are more likely to care for children or aging family members. Sixty-seven percent of American workers who earn minimum wage or less are women, many of whom are employed in home care and child care roles, according to a study by researchers at Drexel University. Women also make up a large majority of front-line workers in fast food, hotel accommodations, and retail. As a result, women are more likely than men to be severely cost-burdened when it comes to housing.

But the current affordable housing crisis isn’t the result of stagnant wages alone. A dearth of homebuilding following the 2008 financial crisis, combined with slow-moving residential construction have made housing more costly and harder to find. In 2022, just 7.2 million housing units in the U.S. had rents under $600, a loss of 2.1 million units since 2012, the Harvard researchers found.

State and federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are now taking action to increase the supply of residential real estate to make affordable housing more accessible for low- and middle-income Americans. Democrats generally advocate for increased federal funding and stronger protections for low-income renters, and Republicans tend to emphasize market-driven solutions and reducing regulatory hurdles to spur housing development. Despite these differences, there is growing recognition on both sides that a combined approach is necessary.

Americans agree that the housing supply shortage deserves a federal response in the near term. Three-quarters of adults surveyed by the Bipartisan Policy Center said passing legislation to increase the supply of affordable homes to help address high housing costs should be a priority for Congress.

Two bipartisan bills introduced in the last year target environmental and zoning regulations that have severely limited new housing construction, which makes the existing supply of apartment units more expensive.

At the end of July, the Senate Banking Committee unanimously voted to advance the ROAD to Housing Act, which aims to significantly increase the supply of affordable housing across the country.

The bipartisan bill, sponsored by Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), includes provisions such as streamlined construction policies, housing grants, and education programs for potential homeowners. It is the first bipartisan markup for housing in over a decade, a major milestone for both parties, which have for years struggled to reach a consensus on federal investments, zoning reform, and private sector incentives. 

“I’m the son of a single mother—growing up, we lived with family until we were able to rent a small place of our own,” Scott said when the bill was introduced last September. “I know firsthand the importance of access to quality, affordable housing. It’s past time for Congress to take serious action to reverse decades of failed housing policies and put all Americans on the road to housing.”

Scott’s childhood experience is shared among many American families. Among single households, especially those with children, female-headed households disproportionately struggle to achieve homeownership. Among never-married households, there’s a 6 percentage-point gap between female and male homeownership, according to the Urban Institute. And despite making up a higher share of college graduates, single female household heads still have substantially lower incomes and are more likely to raise children than single male household heads.

If the ROAD to Housing Act moves forward, it has the potential to increase homeownership for single women, among others. One provision in the bill would establish a federal pilot program to promote economic mobility by enabling more families to grow their household savings. A separate section would require the Federal Housing Administration to study multifamily loan limits and then adjust those limits to better match housing market costs and enhance affordability.

But the bill doesn’t focus just on homeownership, which is out of reach for about half of Americans, according to the National Association of Realtors, a real estate trade organization. Instead, most of the bill’s incentives are centered on making housing more affordable for renters. For example, a $1 billion Innovation Fund would reward communities that build more housing, support infrastructure development, and expand programs like project‑based rental assistance. Another section of the bill, titled “Building More in America,” aims to cut red tape around environmental reviews, update land-use policies, and establish more housing near public transportation routes.

Separately, Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Todd Young (R-IN) introduced the Identifying Regulatory Barriers to Housing Supply Act in July, a bill that focuses specifically on removing local zoning and land use policies that stifle construction. Some of the policies encouraged by the bill include enacting high-density zoning, reducing minimum lot sizes, and allowing single-room occupancy development wherever multifamily housing is allowed.

Importantly, Schatz and Young’s bill doesn’t encroach on the rights of states and localities to set their own zoning policies. Instead, it ensures that state and local recipients of Community Development Block Grants — federal funding for housing and other infrastructure projects — keep track of land use policies that could limit housing construction.

In the House, Representatives Mike Flood (R-NE) and Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) have proposed the Housing Supply Frameworks Act, which is similarly focused on zoning and land-use policies. The bill directs the Department of Housing and Urban Development to develop frameworks for states and localities that need guidance around how to reform local laws, ordinances, and regulations to spur more building and growth.

Additionally, Representatives Scott Peters (D-CA), Robert Garcia (D-CA), and Marc Molinaro (R-NY) created the Congressional Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) Caucus in November, which seeks to promote policies that encourage new housing development. For many years, lawmakers hesitated to embrace so-called YIMBYism because their constituents feared new development could alter the character of their neighborhoods or decrease property values. While the caucus hasn’t authored new legislation yet, its formation represents a sea change that puts affordability and growth first.

Such federal shifts in attitude mirror regulatory changes that states have made in recent years, especially in places like Oregon and California where homeless populations are among the largest in the country. Recent changes to the California Environmental Quality Act aim to streamline the environmental review process for affordable housing projects, reducing delays and encouraging faster development. Meanwhile, Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici wants to make an Oregon program, which helps turn unused buildings into affordable housing and emergency shelters, into federal legislation.

Republican-led states are also increasingly pursuing affordable housing initiatives through deregulation and incentives for private development. In Florida, where 82% of low-income renters are severely cost-burdened, the Live Local Act of 2023 allocates over $700 million to affordable housing while overriding local zoning restrictions to allow for more development. Similarly, Texas has supported public-private partnerships and expanded its Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program to stimulate construction.

As is clear from the many policy solutions being proposed and implemented across the country, there’s no panacea for the current affordable housing crisis. Housing insecurity is no longer limited to the unemployed. It is increasingly the lived reality of employed Americans, many of whom are working women who struggle to afford stable housing.

Addressing the existing housing crisis demands bipartisan policy reforms, targeted investments in affordable homes and apartments, and a cultural shift that recognizes housing as a fundamental right — not a privilege tied to income alone.