Angela Alsobrooks Calls On Congress To 'Leverage Private Sector Dollars' To Tackle Housing Costs

2 days ago

During last Wednesday's Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) questioned witnesses about affordable housing initiatives, and the impact President Trump's tariffs could have on new home construction costs.

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Transcript

00:00Well, Rochester has been here the entire hearing and I thank you for your patience. It took a

00:04while to get to you, but truly appreciate your willingness to stick around on such an important

00:08topic that many of us have shared experiences that hopefully lead to shared solutions as well.

00:14Senator Alsop Brooks.

00:16Thanks so much, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Warren, and to this committee,

00:20thank you so much to the panelists for being here today. We all recognize,

00:26I know it's been said several times today, that home ownership is a key feature to building wealth

00:30in our country. And when I think about this subject, I think about my parents. My mother,

00:34who spent her 50 years as a receptionist. My father, who was a car salesman. They married

00:40at 21 and 22. And at that time, within five years of their marriage, they could afford to buy a home.

00:46That is no longer the case. It's no longer the expectation for my own daughter, who's 19.

00:51So I've spent the last several years, I was county executive, really focused on expanding

00:57home ownership, working to really leverage private sector dollars with public sector dollars. We were

01:03able to build or preserve about 5,000 units in about a three-year period. And so I wonder,

01:09the first question for Dr. Glacier, I wonder if you can speak to the need to really better allocate

01:15private capital into projects that promote home construction and ownership.

01:21Thank you, Senator. I also have a 19-year-old daughter. And so your comment about that

01:27made me just feel how much I agreed with your sentiment about how utterly implausible a home

01:31within seven years would be for her. I think it's fundamentally, when housing worked,

01:42private capital went to provide housing where demand was highest. And you certainly see this

01:47in the data. You see this in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, both across metropolitan areas and

01:51within metropolitan areas, that we built housing in places where demand was higher,

01:55where prices were higher. And that building process helped those prices come down. That

01:59building process took care of demand. That really ceased. And you see that in my Exhibit 3, that the

02:06places that are expensive don't build a lot. The places that build a lot aren't expensive.

02:11And that's because the regulatory differences across space are determining where private

02:16capital is going, not the demand, not the economic core of what makes one place more valuable than

02:21the other, not the sort of fundamental need for opportunity in one place. And so these local

02:26regulations are shaping our country. They're shaping where private capital goes. They're

02:30shaping where we get new homes. They're shaping where we get new businesses. And they're all

02:34being decided at a hyper-local level, which I love federalism in lots of different ways. I love

02:38individual choice. But none of these local town councils or whichever your community is making,

02:43is making a decision saying, what would be best for America in terms of what I'm doing? And

02:47that's, again, why I think it's so valuable that your committee is taking up this topic,

02:51that we sort of need a national voice on this. Thank you. Just another question. You made a

02:59statement, and you said that America's housing crisis, Dr. Glacier, was a deep, self-inflicted

03:05wound. And I'm concerned, you know, because we've heard a lot about tariffs recently. And I

03:10introduced some legislation to actually produce some data just to give us an idea about how it

03:15will increase or how it will impact cost of home building, which I think can further exacerbate the

03:22supply shortage that we see and keep the prices high. So I just wonder what impacts you believe

03:26President Trump's proposed tariffs will have on imported materials and how it will affect the

03:32cost of home building in the United States. For 250 years, economists have generally thought that

03:39tariffs impose costs on consumers. That is certainly true. And this is some, you know,

03:45I am not going to weigh in on whatever the complicated foreign policy dance that's going

03:50on that I don't understand, quite frankly, and I'm not going to do so. And so I'm not going to

03:54second guess that. But certainly, if tariffs stay high, they're going to impose costs. And we're

03:58going to be able to see that over time. Thank you. Just a final question for our mayor here.

04:05I know that you're in fiscal year 2024, both the city of Baltimore, as well as your city of

04:11Dallas received over $30 million in total federal support from HUD. And that includes the funding

04:18allocated through the home program, which I know we've heard a lot about today. I'm a co-sponsor

04:23of the legislation before this committee that would reauthorize and strengthen it. But would

04:26you just talk about the impact to Dallas communities if the funding for HUD programs

04:31is significantly reduced or eliminated? Thank you for the question. And a similar

04:36question was asked earlier, and I'll give you a similar answer, because it's the truth.

04:43The specific impact, I don't have the data in front of me to tell you, you know, what that

04:48has been. But I will tell you, as far as the whole array of federal programs related to housing,

04:56aimed at the lower income end of the spectrum, even before I became the mayor,

05:03but certainly in the past six years, I do see that there is a value to these programs. I do

05:08see that they do create some increase year over year in the available housing stock aimed at that

05:17end of the income spectrum. My reason for really, really wanting to participate in today's discussion

05:24and what I will tell you is that I believe that that amount, even in a good year, is in the,

05:32you know, 3 to 5,000 unit range or something like that. And what we really need to be looking at

05:40are things that are going to substantially increase the amount of housing that's available

05:46throughout the city of Dallas across income levels. And again, I'm talking about creating

05:52enough housing where it relieves pressure for everyone from the young professional, your

05:58daughter, when she wants to move to Dallas and stop renting an apartment and become a homeowner.

06:04And to the folks who are currently living in a far-flung suburb who would like, but who work in

06:11Dallas, maybe they're a barista at a Starbucks, but what they're making, they have to live very,

06:18very far away. Workforce housing, things like that. I feel like we have to force ourselves to

06:25get out of this box of only thinking about housing affordability in terms of these federal programs

06:30and how much more money we can put into these and how many more people we can serve with those

06:34and start thinking about how to have wholesale movements along the supply curve and the amount

06:40of housing that we're producing. And I don't think there's a source other than the private sector to

06:45do it. I mean, if I really, I would tell you, if I really believe that government could do it,

06:51I would say it, but I don't think they can. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

06:54Thank you, Senator Gallego.

Angela Alsobrooks Calls On Congress To 'Leverage Private Sector Dollars' To Tackle Housing Costs

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