NCSHA Washington Report | March 15, 2024
No part of the country offers more compelling proof that solving housing affordability is a top priority for policymakers of every political persuasion than the Mountain West.
From blue Colorado and New Mexico, to red Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming, to two of the six deep purple states expected to decide the 2024 presidential election — Arizona and Nevada — elected officials are taking some of the boldest steps on housing anywhere.
Five of those states were among the 10 fastest growing in the country between 2010 and 2020, igniting a surge in prices and rents. Covid caused “an influx of telecommuting and remote workers, new residents pushed out of more expensive cities, and new housing market investment that has increased home prices more rapidly and more dramatically than in any other region of the country.”
If the Economic Innovation Group is right that the Mountain West “could be the big winner in the new era of industrial policy and partial deglobalization,” attracting even more in-migration, an unfolding affordability challenge could become an unmanageable affordability crisis.
Leaders in the region get it.
Governor Greg Gianforte (R) is credited for making Montana “the first red state to enact sweeping housing legislation to confront a cost crisis.” New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) just signed into law the largest state investment in housing in history, $200 million, saying, “We gotta build houses.” Arizona committed more than $200 million last year, its highest amount ever by far.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox calls housing costs “the single greatest threat to our future prosperity” and has proposed a program to build 35,000 starter homes over the next five years, earning kudos from the Democrats in the state legislature. Colorado residents voted in 2022 to direct several hundred million dollars in tax revenue annually to jurisdictions that expedite affordable development; more than 90 percent of the state’s population lives in communities that have opted-in to receive funding.
It’s no surprise that the National Governors Association has put housing high on its list in Washington: Cox and Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) are the co-chairs of the organization.
The West’s congressional representatives are also leading. One example: The Republican senators of Utah (Lee and Romney) and Wyoming (Barrasso and Lummis), along with Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska (R), want to free up federally owned land — which is half of all the land in the West — for affordable development, potentially leading to millions of additional homes, according to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.
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Nobody in the Senate is more effective on housing than Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto (D), who’s leading efforts to strengthen Housing Bonds, improve the HOME program, and increase Federal Home Loan Bank commitments. Her colleague from Idaho, Senator Mike Crapo (R), is central to continuing discussions about whether the largest expansion of Housing Credits and Housing Bonds in 20-plus years, included in a bipartisan House-passed bill, will move forward in the Senate. He said this week: “I’ve been working to get this done for three years. And I think we should do it as soon as we can.”
Stockton Williams | Executive Director
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Housing affordability speaks volumes about societal progress ?? Plato taught - necessity is the mother of invention. Leaders innovating for growth ?? #HousingCrisis #Innovation