Is the Senate Fixing Housing Policy?

Oct 16, 2025

Guest

Brian Potter

Guest

Alex Armlovich

Guest

Will Poff-Webster

Will Poff-Webster, former legislative counsel, brings insider knowledge on the bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act that aims to tackle the national housing crisis. Alex Armlovich, a seasoned housing policy analyst, breaks down the difference between affordability and supply shortages. Brian Potter shares insights on manufactured housing and its potential impact on costs. Together, they discuss how unexpected political alliances helped pass this comprehensive bill, its key provisions, and the implications for housing policy across the U.S.

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INSIGHT

Unusually Bipartisan Housing Package

The Road to Housing Act bundles 27 bills to boost supply, affordability, and reduce homelessness.
The Senate committee passed it 24-0, an unusual bipartisan outcome for housing legislation.

INSIGHT

Why Housing Is A National Problem

Housing is a national issue because expensive metros drive economic growth and demand spreads to other metros.
COVID and migration made shortages common across most U.S. metropolitan areas.

INSIGHT

The Income–Cost Wedge Explains Affordability

Affordability is driven by incomes and housing costs; zoning creates the wedge between cost and price.
Where wages and amenities are high, bad land-use regulation most damages affordability.

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Today we’re talking about housing. The ROAD to Housing Act passed the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee 24-0 in late July. Last week — despite the shutdown — it cleared the Senate. It’s a package of 27 pieces of legislation to boost housing supply, improve affordability, reduce regulatory roadblocks, and reduce homelessness.

When you zoom out a bit, what’s happened here is pretty surprising. The chair of the committee, Republican Tim Scott, and the Ranking Member, Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, co-sponsored the bill. The bill is the committee’s first bipartisan housing markup in over a decade. Passing through committee unanimously doesn’t happen often for serious bills of this sort. I wanted to understand how this bill happened, and came to have a serious shot at passing. And I also wanted to get a better sense of what’s actually in the bill, and why it matters for housing. If you’re like me, most of the debates you hear about housing policy focus on zoning, which is a local issue — very little federal say. So what are all these pieces of legislation? Do they matter?

Joining me is an unorthodox trio:

* Will Poff-Webster was legislative counsel for Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii. He’s our inside guy today: he worked on the bill within the Senate. And today, he covers housing policy here at IFP.

* Alex Armlovich is Senior Housing Policy Analyst at the Niskanen Center. He has been working on housing issues for a long time, and his fingerprints are on parts of this bill package. He’s my advocate from the outside.

* Brian Potter is Senior Infrastructure Fellow at IFP and author of Construction Physics, which I very much enjoy editing. If I can make one newsletter recommendation to you besides Statecraft, it’s Construction Physics. He has a background in private-sector home building. And has written about several of the proposals in this package.

Table of contents:

* What’s the federal role in housing policy?

* What’s in the bill?

* Regulatory reform

* Technical assistance plus incentives

* Funding and financing reform

* A brief sidebar on manufactured home chassis

* Will the bill matter?

* How did the bill happen, politically speaking?

* The policy wonk success story

Thank you to Harry Fletcher-Wood and Katerina Barton for their judicious transcript and audio edits.

For the full transcript of this conversation, go to www.statecraft.pub.

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