内容来源：美国社会组织HLIHC网站，原文链接见文末
翻译整理：石曼卿，陈杰
*机器翻译未经详细复检，仅供参考
Vice President Kamala Harris announced on August 16 her presidential campaign’s plans to lower costs for American families, including housing costs. The first component of the agenda, “Build the American Dream: Lowering the Costs of Renting and Owning a Home,”calls for the construction of 3 million new housing units in the next four years, outlines actions for creating a fairer rental market, and proposes $25,000 in downpayment support for first-time homeowners.
To address the housing shortage and bring down prices for renters and homeowners alike, the Harris campaign’s plan calls fora historic expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and the first-ever tax incentive for homebuilders who build starter homes sold to first-time homebuyers.Building upon the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed $20 billion innovation fund, the campaign proposes a $40 billion fund that would support local innovations in housing supply solutions, catalyze innovative methods of construction financing, and empower developers and homebuilders to design and build affordable homes. To cut red tape and bring down housing costs, the plan calls for streamlining permitting processes and reviews,including for transit-oriented development and conversions. The agenda also proposes making certain federal lands eligible to be repurposed for affordable housing development. Collectively, these policy proposals seek to create 3 million homes in the next four years.
The campaign plan cites the Biden-Harris administration’s ongoing actions to support the lowest-income renters, including its actions to expand rental assistance for veterans and other low-income renters, increase housing supply for people experiencing homelessness, enforce fair housing laws, and hold corporate landlords accountable.Building upon these commitments, the Harris agenda calls upon Congress to pass the “Stop Predatory Investing Act,” which would remove key tax benefits for major investors who acquire large numbers of single-family rental homes (see Memo, 7/17/23), and the “Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act,” which would crack down on algorithmic rent-setting software that enables price-fixing among corporate landlords.
To make homeownership attainable, Vice President Harris’s proposal would provide up to $25,000 in downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers who have paid their rent on time for two years.First-generation homeowners – those whose parents did not own homes – would receive more generous assistance.
Vice President Harris’s economic agenda also includes proposals to lower grocery costs, lower the costs of prescription drugs and relieve medical debt, and cut taxes for workers and families with children. The plan would restore the American Rescue Plan’s expanded Child Tax Credit, which provided up to $3,600 per child for low- and middle-income families for one year before it expired in 2022, and would enact a new $6,000 tax credit for families in the first year after their child is born. These measures to reduce expenses and boost household income would also improve housing security for low-income families, who often face impossible tradeoffs between paying rent and affording food, medical care, and other basic needs.
Housing affordability is a top-priority issue for voters of all political leanings in the 2024 elections, and candidates of both major parties are addressing housing on the campaign trail. During a campaign event in Asheville, NC, on August 14, former president Donald Trump highlighted a pillar of his campaign’s housing agenda: “To further address the housing affordability crisis, we will work with states […] to open up large tracts of federal land for housing constructions.” Drawing a parallel with the Opportunity Zones program, which he signed into law in 2017 as part of the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” the former president called for these areas to “have low taxes, low regulations, to stimulate rapid economic growth, maximum affordability, and a return of a thing called […] the American Dream.”
Both the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Democratic National Committee (DNC) discuss housing affordability and homelessness in their 2024 party platforms. To read a summary of the housing and homelessness provisions of each platform, see Memo, 7/22. Prior to the release of the party platforms, NLIHC sent identical, nonpartisan letters to the DNC and RNC leadership on June 13, calling on each party to make the housing needs of the lowest-income renters a central pillar of its 2024 party platform. The letters provide background information on the nation’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis and urge each party to adopt a 2024 policy platform that commits to bridging the gap between incomes and housing costs, expanding and preserving the supply of deeply affordable rental homes, providing emergency rental assistance to stabilize families in crisis, strengthening and enforcing renter protections, advancing evidence-based solutions to homelessness, and fixing our country’s broken disaster recovery system. The nonpartisan letters can be found here and here.
美国副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯竞选团队发布降低住房成本的计划
2024年8月19日
美国副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯于8月16日宣布了她的总统竞选团队计划，旨在降低美国家庭的生活成本，包括住房成本。该计划的首个组成部分——“建设美国梦：降低租房和购房成本”——提出在未来四年内建设300万个新的住房单位，概述了创建更公平租赁市场的行动，并提议为首次购房者提供25,000美元的首付支持。
为了应对住房短缺问题并降低租房者和购房者的价格，哈里斯竞选团队的计划提出了对低收入住房税收抵免（LIHTC）的历史性扩展，并首次为建造售给首次购房者的入门房屋的建筑商提供税收激励。该计划在拜登-哈里斯政府提议的200亿美元创新基金基础上，提出设立一个400亿美元的基金，以支持地方住房供应解决方案的创新，推动创新的建筑融资方法，并赋权开发商和建筑商设计和建造可负担的住房。为减少繁文缛节并降低住房成本，该计划呼吁简化审批流程和审查，包括面向交通导向型开发和改造的审批流程。该议程还提议将部分联邦土地重新用作可负担住房开发。总体而言，这些政策提案旨在未来四年内创造300万套住房。
竞选团队计划提到了拜登-哈里斯政府正在进行的支持低收入租房者的行动，包括扩大退伍军人和其他低收入租房者的租金补贴、增加无家可归者的住房供应、执行公平住房法，并追究企业房东的责任。在这些承诺的基础上，哈里斯的议程呼吁国会通过《制止掠夺性投资法案》，该法案将取消大量收购单户出租房的主要投资者的关键税收优惠（参见备忘录，2023年7月17日），并通过《防止算法操控租赁住房垄断的法案》，以打击使企业房东能够进行价格操纵的算法定价软件。
为了使购房可负担，哈里斯副总统的提议将为两年内按时支付房租的首次购房者提供高达25,000美元的首付援助。第一代房主——即父母未拥有房产的人——将获得更慷慨的援助。
哈里斯副总统的经济议程还包括降低食品杂货成本、降低处方药费用、减轻医疗债务，并为工人和有孩子的家庭减税的提案。该计划将恢复《美国救援计划》中扩大儿童税收抵免的内容，该抵免为低收入和中等收入家庭每个孩子提供高达3,600美元的抵免，为期一年，直至2022年到期，并将在孩子出生后的第一年实施一项新的6,000美元的税收抵免。这些措施旨在减少开支并增加家庭收入，从而提高低收入家庭的住房安全，这些家庭往往面临在支付房租与负担食物、医疗等基本需求之间做出艰难选择。
在2024年选举中，住房可负担性问题是各政治立场选民的首要关注点，两个主要政党的候选人都在竞选中讨论住房问题。在8月14日北卡罗来纳州阿什维尔的一次竞选活动中，前总统唐纳德·特朗普强调了他竞选中住房议程的一个重要支柱：“为了进一步解决住房可负担性危机，我们将与各州合作……开放大片联邦土地用于住房建设。”他将这一倡议与2017年他签署为法律的一部分的“机会区”计划相提并论，称这些地区“将享有低税收、低监管，以刺激快速经济增长，最大限度地提高可负担性，并恢复一种可称之为……‘美国梦’的东西。”
共和党全国委员会（RNC）和民主党全国委员会（DNC）都在各自的2024年党纲中讨论了住房可负担性和无家可归问题。要阅读每个党纲关于住房和无家可归条款的摘要，请参见2023年7月22日的备忘录。在发布党纲之前，全国低收入住房联盟（NLIHC）于6月13日向DNC和RNC领导层发送了相同的、无党派的信件，呼吁各党派在其2024年党纲中将低收入租房者的住房需求作为核心支柱。信中提供了有关全国可负担住房和无家可归危机的背景信息，并敦促各党派采用2024年的政纲，承诺弥合收入与住房成本之间的差距，扩大和维护深度可负担的出租住房供应，提供紧急租金援助以稳定处于危机中的家庭，加强和执行租房者保护，推进基于实际的无家可归解决方案，并修复美国破碎的灾难恢复系统。
