Sponsors (3)
The bill expands use of CDBG funds to build new affordable housing—boosting supply and enabling local nonprofit partnerships—but risks diverting funds from other local services, increasing local costs, and failing to reach the neediest households.
Low- and moderate-income households (including renters and residents of tribal and insular areas) will have increased access to new affordable housing because CDBG funds can now be used to build new units.
Local governments, tribes, and community nonprofits can partner more flexibly to deliver housing projects, enabling community-led development and potentially speeding project delivery.
Allowing CDBG funds for new construction may reduce the pool available for other CDBG activities (like infrastructure, public services, or rehabilitation), potentially harming beneficiaries of those programs.
Localities may face higher administrative, subsidy, and staffing costs to plan and deliver new construction projects, straining budgets and capacity.
If project targeting and oversight are weak, new housing development could disproportionately benefit some areas or populations and fail to reach the neediest low-income households.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Permits CDBG recipients to use formula funds to build new residential housing for low- and moderate-income persons.
Allows Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) recipients to use program funds to build new residential housing that serves low- and moderate-income people. The change explicitly adds new construction of affordable housing as an eligible activity for metropolitan cities, counties, states, local governments, insular areas, and Indian tribes that receive CDBG funds. The amendment is narrowly focused: it changes the statutory eligible-activities list to clarify and permit new construction (with or without nonprofit partners) as an activity CDBG dollars may support, rather than limiting CDBG to rehabilitation, acquisition, or other existing activities.
Official title: Amend the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 to expand new home construction, and for other purposes.
Introduced November 10, 2025 by Andy Kim · Last progress November 10, 2025