By David Garci & Julie Aguilar, published by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley on July 11, 2026

The U.S. Congress formally passed the 21st Century Road to Housing Act (ROAD Act) on Tuesday, June 23, and it became law on Saturday, July 11.* This bill culminates over a year of bipartisan, bicameral negotiations. In its final form, the nearly 400-page ROAD Act contains dozens of provisions—ranging from policies that support best practices in zoning and land use changes at the state and local level, to reforms to manufactured housing regulations and that curb large investor activity in single-family home purchases.

Individually, these disparate components represent mostly technical or narrowly tailored reforms; none of these alone will likely change the game for housing supply and affordability across the country. Much more work remains, especially as it pertains to improving outcomes for recipients of federal housing support and returning to an evidence-based approach to addressing homelessness. However, as a whole, the various provisions of the ROAD Act comprise the most significant housing reform package Congress has passed in a generation, setting the stage for even bigger reforms in the future.

Passage of the ROAD Act cements housing as a top tier issue for both parties 

One can hardly overstate the significance of passing the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, not just because of the legislation’s complexity, but because lawmakers reached any agreement at all. In an era of hyper-polarization, it is an unlikely outcome that legislators from such disparate political backgrounds moved such an intricate set of reforms through several rounds of negotiations. Passing this act required Democrats Elizabeth Warren (Ranking Member, Senate Banking) and Maxine Waters (Ranking Member, House Financial Services Committee – HFSC) to work in extended good faith with Republicans Tim Scott (Chair, Senate Banking) and French Hill (Chair, HFSC), as well as the White House. Such bipartisan, good-faith legislating is largely unheard of today; the ROAD Act serves as an exception to the norm and demonstrates that the need to address housing affordability transcends traditional political barriers.

Several key provisions were authored by members from both parties who, in many other instances, struggle to agree on other policy matters. For example, deeply conservative Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana partnered with progressive stalwart Senator Warren to craft the BUILD Now Act (codified in Section 213), which ties Community Development Block Grant program dollars to housing construction in high-cost, supply-constrained markets. Similarly, Republican Representative Mike Flood of Nebraska (Chair of the HFSC Housing Subcommittee) and Democratic Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware (Senate Banking Committee) co-led the Housing Supply Frameworks Act (Section 107), directing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to develop zoning and land use best practices for localities. The list of bipartisan sponsors continues well beyond those mentioned here.

Previously non-starter policies gain acceptance

Many architects of the ROAD Act moved beyond their parties’ longstanding positions during broader negotiations. For example, in previous Congresses, the idea of Democrats championing the loosening of environmental rules seemed impossible. In this Congress, however, National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reform became a priority for some Democrats who expressed that the well-meaning law needlessly delayed and increased the cost of new housing, despite staunch opposition from some environmental groups. This mutual policy priority between Democrats and Republicans resulted in ROAD’s Better Use of Intergovernmental and Local Development (BUILD) Housing Act provision (Section 205), which expands NEPA exemptions for most infill housing.

In another example, Congressional Republicans have traditionally balked at programs that require new spending. Yet, in ROAD, both House and Senate Republicans agreed to Senator Warren’s new $200 million innovation fund program (Section 208). The fund asks congressional appropriators to create a flexible pool of funding for communities that increase their housing supply. Republicans also supported the reauthorization and modernization of the HOME program (Section 501), despite repeated proposals from the White House and the House Budget Committee to zero out funding.

ROAD also expands the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program (Section 212), which allows Public Housing Authorities to take on debt to preserve and rehabilitate their units. Ranking Member Maxine Waters had previously opposed the RAD program, stating it might “do more harm than good.” Ultimately, members of both parties and chambers overcame those and other reservations.

Research and analysis get a boost

ROAD also directs research into understudied topics, including requiring HUD to assess the cost-effectiveness of supporting housing finance for factory-built housing (Section 303) and to identify barriers to insured lending for modular housing (Section 302). Section 205 directs HUD to review the application of Build America, Buy America rules on affordable housing projects and to issue updated guidance. Section 804 directs the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct several assessments, including a report on barriers to workforce and senior housing. The GAO must also research challenges related to heirs’ property (property handed down without legal documentation). Furthermore, localities must conduct local analyses to qualify for certain funding programs, including creating accessible inventories of underdeveloped and publicly owned land (Section 104). Research requirements like these can help shed light on critical housing issues and provide data and evidence to guide future policy development.

Creatively lowering the cost to build and expanding financing options

ROAD includes several common-sense reforms to address high construction costs and expand financing options. Regarding manufactured housing, Section 301 eliminates a long-standing HUD rule requiring a permanent steel chassis. This, combined with a recent rule change loosening restrictions on multistory manufactured homes, could expand the use of factory-built homes and reduce construction costs. Section 303 also updates Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lending rules to allow home improvement loans for manufactured homes used as accessory dwelling units (ADUs). This change opens a new pipeline of financing for homeowners who wish to build an ADU but lack the resources to do so with a federally backed product. Additionally, Section 102 allows HUD to establish federal guidelines for point-access block buildings (single-staircase apartments), which could reduce the cost of “missing middle” housing.

Lawmakers also made important changes to funding rules. Section 203 increases the Public Welfare Investment Cap from 15 percent to 20 percent of overall capital, enhancing banks’ capacity for private investment in affordable housing. Furthermore, Section 204 reforms the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to allow for new construction; cities can now allocate up to 20 percent of their CDBG funds toward new housing development, an activity previously prohibited.

This commentary highlights some of ROAD’s most impactful reforms, though dozens more exist, such as the authorization of a disaster relief funding program, modernizations to rural housing programs, and limitations on large investor purchases of single-family homes. Many of these changes are small in nature and much more work can and should be done around federal approaches to increasing housing supply. ROAD also does not appropriate any money to improve or expand critical demand-side programs. Nor does the bill address any of the contentious actions taken by the current administration, such as the substantial staffing cuts at HUD or proposing to eliminate the mixed-status rule or move away from a housing-first approach to homelessness. All of that said, the passage of the 21st Century Road to Housing Act is a landmark achievement, marking the most significant federal housing reform in a generation.

Beyond the technical details, the significance of ROAD also lies in its existence as a bipartisan, bicameral product. The ability of lawmakers from such varied political backgrounds to broker such a sweeping package suggests that Washington is finally ready to take housing supply and affordability seriously.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to our colleagues, including Sarah Karlinsky and Ben Metcalf, for their thoughtful reviews of this piece.

This commentary does not represent the institutional views of the University of California, Berkeley, or of the Terner Center’s funders. Funders do not determine research findings or recommendations in the Terner Center’s research and policy reports.

*This post was originally published on June 24, 2026, when Congress had passed the the legislation, and it was awaiting signature from President Donald Trump. It has been updated to reflect that it became law on Saturday, July 11, without the President’s signature.

By Ben Christopher – Cal Matters, published July 10, 2026

The largest single piece of federal housing legislation to come out of Congress in at least a generation is about to become law. It will happen in the middle of the night, without much fanfare and it might be a while before many Californians notice its effects. (Note: the bill became law on July 11, 2026 without the president’s signature).

That’s because though the bill is politically monumental, it doesn’t do one big thing. Instead, it does a lot of little things. Individually, none of the bill’s 56 regulatory tweaks, pilot programs and low-cost loans and grants are likely to move the needle on the nation’s housing affordability woes, nor on California’s specifically. 

Supporters hope that collectively, they just might. 

Even the law’s path to enactment had an under-the-radar quality to it. The White House abruptly cancelled a planned signing ceremony late last month with President Trump vowing not to lend his signature to the housing bill until Congress first passed a national voter ID proposal. That bill has stalled out in the Senate.  On Friday, Trump vowed again not to sign the bill in protest. Even so, because Trump does not appear likely to veto the housing package, it will automatically become law on Saturday just after midnight, as per terms specified in the U.S. Constitution.

For all that, supporters say this is still a big deal: A major, bipartisan piece of legislation aimed at boosting housing construction from a hyperpartisan legislative body that doesn’t typically touch the topic.

“We don’t often gather to celebrate federal housing legislation,” said Stephen Russell, president of the San Diego Housing Federation, at a press conference on Thursday. “I think the last time Congress passed anything of this magnitude, many of you were not even alive … it is almost a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

That’s thanks in part to a growing caucus of lawmakers aligned with the “Yes In My Backyard” movement that helped push the bill into law. Many hail from California, a state that has had more experience than most contending with wildly unaffordable housing. But the cause of making housing more affordable, and attributing high housing costs to a lack of sufficient supply, has become a national and bipartisan concern. Case in point: The bill originated as a joint proposal by U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, a Republican, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a Democrat and one of the body’s most liberal members. 

While the constituent parts of the bill are relatively narrow and none are specifically focused on California, experts highlight a handful of new provisions that could leave a notable imprint on the state.

Build Now (or else)

For high-cost cities that don’t build much housing (see: an awful lot of urban California), the federal bill includes a novel carrot and stick.

This portion of the bill would change the Community Development Block Grant, one of the largest sources of federal funding for affordable housing and local economic development. Pricey cities — defined through a variety of data benchmarks like median prices and vacancy rates — with a track record of under-building that continue to see below-average housing construction will have their grant funds cut by 10%. The savings will go to their municipal counterparts that build at a faster clip. 

That’s likely to have “real implications for cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco that have traditionally lagged behind” in adding housing supply, said David Garcia, the deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. 

The City of LA received $48.4 million in its last award from the block grant program in 2024, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data. San Francisco received $18.9 million. Those numbers aren’t enough to make or break the budget of either city.

“I think this will be a small nudge,” said Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action, in an email. “Which taken across the country could still have a good impact! Little nudges add up.”

More dramatic than the number of dollars involved may be the precedent the policy sets. Even in California, where the state government has aggressively incentivized cities to plan for more housing development and penalized those that don’t, lawmakers have never punished municipalities for failing to actually grow — an outcome that may not always be under a city government’s control. Such an idea would have been “inconceivable in previous congresses,” said Garcia. Despite that, the provision hasn’t engendered much public pushback from local government groups yet. In an online summary, Michael Wallace, a lobbyist with the National League of Cities, applauded the overall housing bill as an example of the federal government “choosing partnership with local governments over preemptions.” He singled out other provisions of the bill that provide expanded flexibility for Community Development Block Grant spending, new incentive programs for adding supply, and new supports for local urban planning.

Chassis change

Manufactured housing units are often colloquially referred to as “mobile homes,” but they don’t tend to move around much. Built on assembly lines and shipped to where they’re needed, these naturally affordable houses — the likes of which lawmakers across California and the United States claim we need in droves — are often placed upon permanent foundations where a fewer than one-in-ten ever move again. Even so, the federal building code applied to manufactured housing includes a costly, vestigial reference to its mobile origins: a permanent chassis.

A giant steel frame with removable axles and wheels, the chassis ostensibly exists to make it easier to pick up and move a manufactured house by truck. In practice, it serves as a 10- to 12-inch thick floor beneath the floor. Because it cannot be removed upon delivery, it just serves as “dead space and wasted money,” said Jess Maxcy, president of the California Manufactured Housing Institute, the industry’s trade group. Aside from adding thousands of dollars in added costs per unit, it also makes it harder for manufactured units to be stacked into double story homes or multifamily apartment buildings. The federal housing bill removes the permanent chassis requirement, something that manufacturers and some housing policy experts have been pushing for since the mid-1980s.

“That relatively minor change will expand access to one of the most affordable forms of home ownership available,” said Rep. Scott Peters, a San Diego Democrat, at the Thursday press conference. Maxcy said he doesn’t expect the end of the chassis requirement to trigger an overnight building boom in the manufactured home industry. But especially in California where, due to the high price of land, new single-family homes are more likely to be built stacked on small lots, the regulatory change “provides more opportunities and helps us reduce the price.”

Recovering after disaster

In the months after a natural disaster, long after emergency federal dollars have come and gone, Congress has provided communities with long-term rebuilding grants through the Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery program. Over the last three decades, the program has spent more than $100 billion on the long-term work of recovery, like home construction, infrastructure repair, and rental and relocation assistance. That money tends to be reserved for low income people and communities “who are not going to bounce back without the funds,” said Marion McFadden, who used to run the program under the Biden administration and now works at the disaster preparation and recovery consulting company IEM.

Unfortunately for California, the program only kind of exists. Since the mid-1990s, it’s been stood up and funded on an ad hoc basis, one appropriation bill at a time. That’s presents a challenge for communities planning in the middle of post-disaster planning. It also means the rules that govern the program — when the money goes out, to whom, under what conditions and for what purposes — are redrafted with each political administration. That’s had the effect of slowing things down considerably. No program funding has gone to Los Angeles in the wake of the 2025 fire storms, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Congress has yet to appropriate any.

The new housing bill would officially write the program into law for at least three years. “It creates the ability for HUD to have money on hand before a disaster and then make a decision within 15 days about whether they’re going to provide funding,” said McFadden. What the housing bill doesn’t do: Actually provide any fresh funding. Disaster prone communities will need to wait for Congress to take that up later.

A ‘bottleneck’ removed

For the last two decades, public housing authorities in Los Angeles and the Bay Area have been turning to the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program to help repair and upgrade their aging stock of increasingly dilapidated public housing. The program works by switching up funding sources in a way that gives locals more flexibility to borrow money and attract private investment dollars. Until July 11 at midnight, the federal government was only authorized to permit 455,000 of these conversions. The new bill raises the cap by another 100,000. “This has been a bottleneck in California for years and that bottleneck just got removed,” said Russell with the San Diego Housing Federation.

Not all affordable housing advocates are cheering the development. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has consistently opposed expansion of the program on the grounds that the change in funding source could weaken existing tenant protections. It’s unclear whether and to what extent that might be true. A study from last year found no evidence that conversions under the program lead to more evictions.

Wall Street out of suburbia

If you’ve heard only one thing about this housing bill, it’s that it bans “large institutional investors” from buying up more single family homes. Caveats apply in the final version of the law. The bill defines “large” as any of a number of business structures with control over more than 350 single family homes. It doesn’t apply retrospectively, so current investors with portfolios brimming with houses need not divest. Exemptions exist for new construction, renovations and senior housing. In California specifically, where corporations and other major investors do not play a significant role in the housing market, the effect is likely to be muted. 

The measure “takes a hyper-salient issue for lots of people across the country and does a pretty modest intervention to address it,” said Chad Maisel, a fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress and a former housing policy advisor to President Biden. Even so, the provision has plenty of bipartisan appeal. Earlier this year, Trump called for an even stricter crackdown on so-called corporate landlords. Gov. Gavin Newsom followed suit the same week.

The anti-investor language was considerably watered down from earlier this year, when a related provision threatened to undermine “build-to-rent” projects: Well-financed subdevelopments of single-family homes reserved for renters. That prompted a revolt by many developers and YIMBY activists who had otherwise enthusiastically supported the bill, who argued that such communities are one of the fastest growing sources of the U.S. housing stock and provide some of the few opportunities for renters to live in suburban-style, family-sized housing. 

After the build-to-rent provision was left on the cutting room floor of Congress, state Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Fremont Democrat who is now running for Congress, introduced a bill that picked it back up again. SB 880 would have banned the bundled sale of multiple single-family homes, striking at the heart of the build-to-rent business model. That bill died in the Assembly Judiciary committee in late June.