The path forward for the critical housing investments Democrats sought to protect in the Build Back Better Act (BBB) is getting murky, as uncertainty hangs over the party’s chances of passing its partisan package amid resistance from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), The Hill reported. Democrats garnered a wave of headlines last year after unveiling proposals for $300 billion in historic affordable housing investments seen by advocates as potentially transformative in combating the housing crisis, including boosting funding for rental assistance and public housing construction. But as intraparty disagreements arose over the size of the plan, an essential component of President Biden’s agenda, the price tag for housing investments began to fall sharply, just as in other areas of the far-reaching package. Funding set aside for housing was cut by almost half in the House-passed version of the climate and social spending plan last year. And it remains to be seen whether the same scope of housing investments will be in any other effort the party makes this year at a package passed via budget reconciliation, a complicated procedure that will allow Democrats to bypass a GOP filibuster in the evenly split Senate. “I think that the realistic pathway for a budget resolution is something more narrow, and we have to start telling the truth about that,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. “I know nobody wants to be the bad guy and say, ‘It ain’t happening,’ but if we’re going to do a reconciliation vehicle, it’s going to be skinny,” he bluntly said. Pressed about potential talks on housing action through reconciliation, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), head of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, said he and others are “continuing to push” for those investments, but wouldn’t divulge further where they fit in the current state of play.
