Yes in My Backyard Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HECK. Mr. Speaker, I do, in fact, rise in support of H.R. 4351, the Yes In My Backyard, or YIMBY, Act. I thank the gentleman from Guam (Mr. San Nicolas) as well as the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill) for bringing this to the floor.

Our Nation is, in fact, suffering from a severe national housing crisis, a word that is overused too much but, in fact, applies to the situation.

We are indeed missing millions of homes to meet qualified and eligible demand in this country. The reference earlier was to 7.3 million. Estimates range from 7 to 10 million homes.

In my home State alone, to put that in perspective, Washington State, we are underproduced by 200,000 homes.

The implications of not having enough homes, of a supply problem, are grave, because housing, it turns out, is an ecosystem. What we see now is this entire ecosystem is under stress, and as a consequence, the cost of shelter is going up for everyone.

From homeowners to renters, market-rate to affordable homes, and urban to suburban and rural areas, this housing crisis has hit everyone.

One place where it is particularly acute is the production of starter homes. Stop and think about what that does to the ecosystem. If we are not building starter homes because of some of the fees, as an example, or regulations that my friend from Arkansas alluded to, that means that people who are renting can't quite get that first rung on the ladder of homeownership. It also means that the boomers who are seeking to downsize can't find homes that they can purchase.

What is the implication of that? If there are no starter homes, more people stay renting. If more people stay renting, occupancies go up. If occupancies go up, rents go up.

It is pure supply and demand. More people become rent-burdened, and, yes, in fact, this is a contributory cause of increased homelessness even in America.

How severe is this? Little known fact, but a fact nonetheless: In the last 15 years, the single largest increase in household budgets, counterintuitively, is not healthcare, not postsecondary education, but it is housing.

I have been saying for years that we need to encourage the construction of more homes that Americans can afford. We need to build more homes of all types and sizes for all of our neighbors.

Now, affordable housing advocates, economists, builders, lenders, and countless others have come together to try to begin to solve this problem, now a crisis, and there are a few common themes beginning to emerge from their research.

One of these common themes is that certain zoning and land use policies are negatively impacting construction and affordable housing supply. Local governments regulate zoning and land use policy, and we shouldn't be doing that here. That is not what this bill is about.

The fact of the matter is, communities experience different barriers to housing. One size doesn't fit all, so we shouldn't be getting into that business. But the impact of zoning and land use policies on housing are significant. As certain regulations have increased, they have resulted in fewer homes and unaffordable housing cost increases for everyone, the hardest hit being low-income people.

Here is another fact. There is not a single county in the United States of America where somebody working full time at a minimum wage job can afford, according to Federal standards, a two-bedroom unit--not a single county in all of America.

That is why I argue that we must have a better understanding of the impacts of these policies. Sunlight is, after all, the best disinfectant.

Under the YIMBY Act, local governments receiving Federal housing funds through the Community Development Block Grant program, or CDBG, would report on whether they have enacted policies to reduce regulations that affect affordable housing supply.

Let's be clear. There is nothing in this bill that will deny municipalities CDBG--nothing. Rather, the bill seeks simple transparency for these decisions. It encourages localities to eliminate housing barriers.

I introduced the YIMBY Act with my friend, Congressman Hollingsworth from Indiana, and it did, in fact, pass out of the committee unopposed. But it is not only bipartisan. It enjoys an incredible spectrum of support among external stakeholders.

I am not going to bore you with all 18 organizations, but everybody from the American Planning Association, to Habitat for Humanity, to the Mortgage Bankers Association all back this bill because it is time to take this step.

Solving the housing crisis is going to require the work and collaboration of all levels of government. Everybody has a hand on the oar here, local, State, and Federal governments. This is no longer something that elected officials at any level can ignore, and that includes us.

We have a national housing crisis, one that is brought on in part by zoning and land use policies. This YIMBY Act is a crucial first step to addressing these policies in order to bring down housing costs.

Mr. Speaker, I submit it to the body for its favorable consideration, and I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill), the gentleman from Guam (Mr. San Nicolas), and the chair of the committee as well for their work bringing this to the floor today.

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