The ROAD to Housing: Better Governance for Better Housing

This article is part of The Rooftop, a blog and multimedia series from New America’s Future of Land and Housing program. Featuring insights from experts across diverse fields, the series is a home for bold ideas to improve housing in the United States and globally.

The biggest housing bill in decades was passed into law in July. The 21st Century Road to Housing Act is a bipartisan, omnibus legislation that tackles everything from housing supply, affordable housing, housing finance, and program governance in one sweeping package. Among its many provisions: encouraging new construction, cutting burdensome regulations, and easing rules for manufactured housing, much of the ROAD to Housing Act aligns with the national movement to fix the supply crisis by building more homes faster.

In response to this landmark legislation, we asked practitioners across the housing field to share their views on the ROAD Act— where it offers the greatest opportunities, where it missed opportunities, and what needs to happen next for the law to have an impact. Across three editions of The Rooftop in the month of September, we present housing leaders’ views on specific provisions of the law to paint a fuller picture of the opportunity, the challenges, and the road ahead.

This is our last of the ROAD Rooftop special edition, which highlights the ROAD Act’s support for good governance in the housing sector. Read our previous editions on the ROAD Act’s impact on housing stability and housing supply.

Ryan Brenner, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, on the housing-related disaster recovery provision

Buried beneath the political theater and provisions related to new housing development in the ROAD Act is a quiet transformation of federal disaster recovery. Disaster resilience shows up in several places, such as excluding sites at risk of wildfire and flooding from infill development exemptions and providing streamlined environmental review for managed retreat from floodplains. 

Section 504 formalizes HUD’s disaster recovery responsibilities and establishes a new Office of Disaster Management and Resiliency within HUD. For the first time, it grants permanent statutory authority for Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR), with funding from the newly established Long-Term Disaster Recovery Fund within the U.S. Treasury. Although CDBG-DR has long functioned as a primary source of long-term recovery funding, it has operated as an ad hoc appropriation. This meant each appropriation established a new set of statutory requirements, and there was no guarantee that a disaster would receive an appropriation. Now, the ROAD Act requires HUD to evaluate each presidentially-declared disaster and announce within 90 days to 120 days whether the disaster qualifies and specify the allocation of CDBG-DR funding. 

Ultimately, the impact of the ROAD Act on disaster recovery will depend on adequate appropriations for the Long-Term Disaster Recovery Fund and on CDBG-DR regulations yet to be promulgated. However, in a time characterized by program cuts and funding reversals, the formalization of an ad-hoc program provides reason for optimism.

Jeanne Fekade-Sellassie, Fund for Housing and Opportunity, on governance and transparency

Affordable and accessible housing is key to strong communities. The 21st Century Road to Housing Act reflects a growing recognition that housing is a basic need and fundamental to our collective wellbeing. At the same time, there is still a long way to go before we have a housing system that works for everyone.

Title VII of the bill is focused on oversight and accountability. Among its provisions, it requires: the HUD Secretary to testify annually before Congress; the Interagency Council on Homelessness to provide annual updates on federal homelessness strategy; and new reporting conditions and procedures for HUD and other federal agencies. Each measure can offer Congress and the public valuable insights about whether federal housing programs are achieving their objectives. 

Transparency, however, is not the same as accountability. If agencies report that homelessness is increasing or goals are not being met, Title VII does not offer mechanisms for corrective action. Reports and testimony are only as effective as the willingness of policymakers to respond. This is especially relevant at a time when federal capacity to tackle homelessness and housing insecurity has been weakened by significant staffing and funding cuts. The administration has also pushed back on evidence-based approaches to solving homelessness. 

Title VII lays the groundwork for more transparency in the housing system, but it is just a start. Future legislation should pair oversight with enforceability, adequate agency capacity, and sustained investment, so that identifying problems leads to solving them.

John Berlau, Competitive Enterprise Institute, on promoting new, or de novo, bank and credit union formation

The ROAD Act’s deregulatory measures regarding de novo banking are vital first steps in tackling the dearth of new banks and credit unions. It’s a welcome sign that both parties recognize this as a problem affecting everything from housing to small business capital formation. However, much more needs to be done to promote the formation of de novo financial institutions.

As I testified before the House Financial Services Committee, only 54 new banks had been approved from 2010 to mid-2025, compared to the decades before that, when more than 100 new banks were approved in a typical year. This lack of competition in the banking sector is creating harmful gaps, leaving many small businesses and consumers unable to find banks and credit unions to meet their needs.

The shortage of new banks and credit unions has contributed to banking deserts, where local residents and businesses lack financial service providers familiar with the community’s needs. As Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision, Michelle Bowman, has stated, “the absence of de novo bank formation over the long run will create a void in the banking system.” Housing finance suffers especially, as national providers may be unfamiliar with opportunities for affordable housing in a local area.

The ROAD Act tackles this issue by mandating that financial regulatory agencies assign a caseworker to each application. It also requires agencies to report frequently to Congress on the status of de novo applications, and encourages phased-in capital for de novo banks.

Congress needs to pass legislation to set a time limit for financial regulators to approve a new bank or credit union application, or to specify where the application falls short and what applicants can do to meet the banking agencies’ approval standards. The ROAD Act, however, opens the way to a competitive banking sector that better serves housing finance and other consumer needs.

Crystal German, Self-Help, on several pieces—Federal Housing Administration (FHA) changes, small balance mortgages, and appraisal requirements

At Self-Help, one of the nation’s largest CDFIs, we see daily how housing affordability shapes economic opportunity. Families struggling to find affordable homes, renters facing displacement, and communities working to boost housing supply confront the same reality: the nation needs more housing and better tools to preserve affordability. The ROAD to Housing Act is the most significant federal housing legislation in decades because it tackles both supply and affordability. 

Many provisions stand out. Higher FHA multifamily loan limits support affordable rental development and preservation. Small-balance mortgage options expand access to homeownership for first-time buyers and lower-cost home purchases. Reforms supporting accessory dwelling units, manufactured housing, and more efficient environmental reviews add supply without sacrificing quality or consumer protections.

Preservation matters too. Preserving existing affordable homes is often faster and cheaper than replacing them. Supporting rehabilitation, home repair, and preservation helps maintain affordability, strengthen neighborhoods, and avoid displacing long-term residents. Operational improvements, such as changes to FHA appraisal requirements, reduce unnecessary delays, making financing more accessible for borrowers, developers, and lenders.

At Self-Help, we understand that our housing challenges will not be solved by a single piece of legislation. But the ROAD Act reflects a key truth: increasing supply, preserving affordability, and expanding access to homeownership must be pursued concurrently, with the urgency families are facing every day.

Editor’s note: The views expressed in the articles on The Rooftop are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy positions of New America.