An aerial view of homes under construction in a planned community in Fontana, California, on September 17, 2025. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – Democrats in the U.S. Senate began fleshing out their affordability agenda Thursday ahead of November’s midterm elections, with an initial focus on housing.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said during an event at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, that if Democrats regain control of the House and Senate, they would pass legislation to expand rental assistance, reduce barriers to homeownership, build more housing and combat predatory practices.
Schumer listed several statistics he finds troubling, including that the average price of a home has increased 55% since the coronavirus pandemic, that rent has increased by a third and that the average age of a first-time home buyer is 40.
“This is a record,” he said. “This is a devastating statistic that should alarm anyone in a position of power at the federal, state or local level.”
Schumer said the housing bill is just the first of several cost-of-living policy proposals that Democrats will elaborate on this year to persuade voters in key districts and states to vote for their candidates over Republicans.
He said Democrats would also focus in the midterm elections on how to curb the rising costs of food, electricity, child care and health care.
When it comes to housing, Schumer said Democrats would focus on legislation that would make that possible
- Incentivize developers to build more housing to address the shortage across the country;
- Expanding rental assistance, including Section 8 vouchers for low-income families;
- reduce barriers to home ownership;
- Expanding the low-income housing tax credit;
- allow the Department of Housing and Urban Development to utilize the Defense Production Act to purchase “scarce housing materials”;
- Establish an agency focused on advanced research on housing issues, similar to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; And
- prevent “predatory companies” from “easily swallowing up entire city districts and turning them into profit machines.”
Democratic bills would provide down payment assistance, reduce the cost of mortgage insurance, expand access to affordable mortgages and “reform homeowners insurance, which is now at crisis levels and is so important to people who can’t afford that down payment,” Schumer said.
Democrats have a relatively good chance of regaining control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections, especially since the president’s party is leaning toward losing that chamber two years after taking power.
Campaigns to regain control of the Senate will be much more challenging for Democrats as they struggle to retain their seats in Georgia and Michigan while trying to flip Republican seats in Alaska, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio.
Even if voters gave Democrats control of Congress, party leaders would still need some Republican support to get the bill past the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster, and they would have to get President Donald Trump to sign legislation into law unless they had the two-thirds majority needed in each chamber to override a veto.
A “family conversation”
Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said during a panel discussion with Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth moderated by CAP President and CEO Neera Tanden that he has become “radicalized on housing” and urged party members to talk realistically about supply and affordability issues.
“And the reason for that is because our shortage across the country, but especially in Hawaii, is so great that people can’t keep up the math,” Schatz said. “In Hawaii, people as a whole spend more than 50% of their income on housing, either renting or paying a mortgage. And it has become clear to me that we are the problem.”
Schatz argued that government was “the main obstacle to alleviating the shortage” and that the realization led him to have some “very difficult conversations.”
In Hawaii, he said, there are environmental and cultural protections that are meant to protect “special places” but that end up being broader and hindering residential development.
“They were not originally intended to prevent a walk-up apartment building on the corner of Eisenberg and King to house local Hawaiian families,” Schatz said. “And yet these same laws are being used as a weapon to prevent the people of Hawaii from living in the state of Hawaii at all.”
Schatz said Democrats need to be straightforward with voters about what their housing policies would mean for communities across the country, claiming the party needs to “clarify the politics” around housing expansion before tackling the policy debate.
“I actually think we need to have this family conversation about housing policy and be aware that some of our core voters in the suburbs, who are otherwise good on all progressive issues across the board, also want to prevent a nurse, a firefighter, disabled people, elderly people or students from living anywhere near them,” Schatz said. “And we need to have this conversation in the progressive coalition.”
Rethink inspections and other processes
Duckworth said some housing solutions could come from rethinking the processes now in place, similar to how the Department of Veterans Affairs changed its approach to homeless veterans.
“VA always said, ‘You have to get tidy and sober, and then we’ll give you a voucher to get into an apartment.’ And so it didn’t make sense, did it?” Duckworth said.
“So we had to shift our mindset to what the homeless community had been working on, which was harm reduction — getting them into the shelter and then working to get them clean and sober,” she continued. “And by changing that mindset, we were able to immediately begin taking veterans off the streets and placing them in housing units where they could immediately receive counseling and treatment as well.”
Duckworth compared the sometimes snail-paced process of housing inspections, which can halt construction, to the way the government approaches vehicle safety as a possible way to move things along more quickly.
“With cars, we say, ‘This car you’re making has to withstand a 35 mph crash into a wall.’ And then when they meet and get the car approved, when we buy the car, we don’t have to take the car in to have it inspected from top to bottom like we do with houses,” Duckworth said.
She added, “Why shouldn’t we tell home builders, especially (manufactured) homes, that if you come to VA and are willing to get two models of your home, pre-inspected and approved, then when a veteran builds a new home and says, ‘Hey, I’m going to go with one of these models that already has a VA seal of approval for good housekeeping,’ they can shorten that inspection process.”
