Affordable Housing for Renters and Homeowners/Gentrification

Q22: Do you have a plan to address affordable housing for low- and middle-income
households?

Biden: Yes. I believe housing should be a right for all and that no one should have to pay more than 30% of their income towards rent. As president, I will invest in constructing new affordable housing and repairing existing housing units. I’ll make historic investments in federal homelessness assistance grants and reform all federal programs to ensure they take a “housing first” approach to ending homelessness. I’ll end redlining and other discriminatory practices in the housing market. I’ll make sure that everyone who qualifies for Section 8 housing is able to obtain it. And, I’ll create a $15,000 down payment tax credit for first-time home buyers.

Bloomberg: Mike Bloomberg has a plan to make sure that a stable home is within reach of all Americans. As president, Mike will ensure that Americans are no longer burdened by exorbitant housing costs and prioritize rental assistance for those that need it most. The plan will also cut homelessness in half by 2025, while alleviating the nation’s severe shortage of affordable housing through robust new strategies to stimulate new and affordable housing development.

Mike’s Housing Affordability and Homelessness Initiatives:

Guarantee rental assistance for the lowest-income Americans
Cut homelessness by half in four years, from nearly 600,000 to less than 300,000
Alleviate the nation’s severe shortage of affordable housing, break down barriers to building in places where people want to live, and ensure that housing is accessible to those who need it
Help renters become owners and ensure that no one is denied access on the basis of their race
Help local governments cut through red tape and empower cities to enact change

Buttigieg: Yes. The affordability crisis is a problem of both supply and income. To address this, I will invest $430 billion in affordable housing, unlocking access to affordable housing for more than 7 million households. This will include supporting the construction of new affordable housing through the Housing Trust Fund, Capital Magnet Fund, and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit; repairing existing public housing; and enabling over 1 million low-income households to become homeowners. I will also make housing choice vouchers available for all families with children and make targeted investments to address the homelessness crisis, particularly in large coastal cities.

De La Fuente: Homelessness, temporary housing programs, and rehabilitation programs are a priority for my administration if elected. The thousands of dignified jobs we create with the new infrastructure bill will help pull people up. We must stop our best and brightest workers from leaving our country, we need to address homelessness and affordable housing with real solutions, we need to make New America great again.

Klobuchar: Yes. As part of her Housing First plan, Senator Klobuchar will overhaul our country’s housing policy so all Americans can have the opportunity to succeed. She will completely eliminate the Section 8 backlog and provide rental assistance to all Americans who qualify, limit average wait times for Section 8 housing assistance to three months, and provide temporary housing for those at risk of homelessness. She will also invest in affordable housing infrastructure and expand funding to build, rehabilitate, and operate homes for low-income families, including by funding the Housing Trust Fund at a minimum of $40 billion per year. In addition, Senator Klobuchar will advocate for a new federal tax credit, similar to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, to encourage investment in family-owned homes in neglected neighborhoods.

Sanders: Yes. In the richest country in the history of the world, every American must have a safe, decent, accessible, and affordable home as a fundamental right. We need a homes guarantee. If we are serious about addressing the affordable housing crisis, we need to build millions of apartments and homes throughout the country that will remain affordable in perpetuity to prevent displacement and serve future generations.

When Bernie is president, he will end the housing crisis by investing $2.5 trillion to build nearly 10 million permanently affordable housing units. He will:

Invest $1.48 trillion over 10 years in the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund to build, rehabilitate, and preserve the 7.4 million quality, affordable and accessible housing units necessary to eliminate the affordable housing gap, which will remain affordable in perpetuity. Units constructed with this funding will be eligible to be located in mixed-income developments. Bernie will use federal preemption to ensure these new units are not segregated or excluded by local zoning ordinances.
Invest an additional $400 billion to build 2 million mixed-income social housing units to be administered through the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which will help desegregate and integrate communities. This plan will guarantee equity in social housing units, ensuring no inequality of services or conditions within units.
Invest $180 billion over 10 years in sustainable retrofits for public housing through the Green New Deal and $70 billion in the Housing for All plan to repair and modernize public housing including making all public housing accessible and providing access to high-speed broadband for all public housing residents.
Invest $50 billion over 10 years to provide grants to start and expand community land trusts and other shared equity homeownership models. This funding will enable over 1 million households to purchase affordable homes over the next 25 years.
Invest $15 billion to enact a 21st Century Homestead Act, based on the work of Mehrsa Baradaran, to purchase and revitalize abandoned properties to create community and individual wealth and assets for historically disadvantaged communities.
Expand USDA’s Section 515 program by $500 million to build new affordable developments in rural areas, and protect existing units from being converted to market rate housing.
Increase funding for the Indian Housing Block Grant Program to $3 billion to build, preserve, and rehabilitate affordable housing in Indian country.
Fully fund tenant-based Section 8 rental assistance at $410 billion over the next 10 years and make it a mandatory funding program for all eligible households.
Combat gentrification, exclusionary zoning, segregation, and speculation.
Protect tenants by implementing tenants bill of rights that includes a national rent control standard, a “just-cause” requirement for evictions, and ensuring the right to counsel in housing disputes.
Strengthen and expand the Fair Housing Act and increase enforcement to eliminate housing discrimination which is still pervasive throughout the United States.

Steyer: Yes. There is a shortage of 7 million rental affordable housing units in America. Safe and affordable housing is central to a thriving life. Years of under-investment in building new housing stock — and particularly affordable housing units — have left millions of Americans struggling to find an affordable, safe, and secure home. My plan will spur the construction and renovation of 3.5 million units of affordable housing.

Warren: Yes. Every American deserves a safe, decent, and affordable place to live. Meanwhile, home ownership is out of reach for too many families—especially Black families. That’s why I have a plan to invest $500 billion over the next ten years to build, preserve, and rehabilitate millions of housing units that will be affordable to lower-income families. My plan would also create 1.5 million new jobs in housing construction and rehabilitation, reduce rents, and secure tenants’ rights nationwide while fighting exploitation by corporate landlords. Read more about my plan to build safe and affordable housing here: https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/safe- affordable-housing

Q23: Do you have a plan to strengthen and close the wealth gap to increase home ownership and rent affordability?

Bloomberg: Yes. Homeownership is traditionally a vital way to build generational wealth and community. It is a pillar of the American Dream for many. Mike will help renters become homeowners. Mike will pilot targeted assistance to help people afford down payments for new homes, provide federal matching funds to offer all residents of the 100 Communities down-payment assistance, and broaden access to basic financial services. With the goal of supporting one million new Black American homeowners, Mike will address inequities in wealth and home ownership, and enforce laws designed to ensure that developers, landlords, and lenders act fairly.

Buttigieg: Yes. Seventy-four percent of neighborhoods that were redlined in the 1930s remain low-income to this day, and 64% remain majority-minority. Meanwhile, policies from the New Deal to the G.I. Bill to the Federal Housing Administration of the 1950s and 1960s directly invested in white homeownership while purposely excluding Black Americans. This investment has compounded over generations and combined with centuries of conscious and intentional discrimination to entrench the racial wealth gap. This is why, in addition to the affordable housing policies outlined in the question above, my Douglass Plan proposes a 21st Century Community Homestead Act. Such an act will constitute a transfer of vacant land and blighted property to low-income residents of formerly redlined neighborhoods and directly attack the racial wealth gap by fostering asset ownership. My proposal also includes support for fixing up those properties and a suite of programs to bring job growth and revitalize surrounding cities.

De La Fuente: Yes. As president, I will put forth a multi-billion-dollar plan that mandates the Office of Housing and Urban Development to provide loans/grants to minorities so that families can make down payments and be assisted in closing costs for a home. There will be guidelines and criteria for receiving such funds, but considering the racist business and lending practices and redlining of communities from the past, we must do something to lift people up. All people deserve a chance to chase the American dream, not just white people.

Klobuchar: Yes. Senator Klobuchar believes that economic justice and opportunity means investing in underserved areas, providing early-childcare, fixing our education system, addressing racism in health care such as disparities in maternal and infant mortality rates, overhauling our country’s housing policies by totally eliminating the Section 8 backlog and ending housing discrimination, and tackling racial disparities in wages and in retirement savings. And as President, Senator Klobuchar will fully empower agencies to aggressively fight modern-day redlining that prevents businesses owned by people of color from getting loans and take on predatory lending that results in higher interest rates in low-income communities of color.

Sanders: Yes. When Bernie is President, he will ensure that African Americans are able to benefit from the wealth generation that comes from home ownership; and end the structural racism in our housing system. Under our Housing for All Plan, we will invest an additional $2 billion at USDA and an additional $6 billion at HUD to create a first-time homebuyer assistance program that will increase home ownership. We will invest $50 billion over 10 years to provide grants to start and expand community land trusts and other shared equity homeownership models. This funding will enable over 1 million households to purchase affordable homes over the next 25 years. We will invest an additional $15 billion to enact a 21st Century Homestead Act, based on the work of Mehrsa Baradaran, to purchase and revitalize abandoned properties to create community and individual wealth and assets for historically disadvantaged communities. We will also expand pre-purchase housing counseling to all prospective homebuyers. For those renting, we’ll make rent affordable by making Section 8 vouchers available to all eligible families without a waitlist and strengthening the Fair Housing Act and implement a Section 8 non-discrimination law, so that landlords can no longer discriminate against low-income families based on their source of income. We will protect tenants by implementing a national rent control standard, a “just-cause” requirement for evictions, and ensuring the right to counsel in housing disputes.

And Bernie will create an independent National Fair Housing Agency similar to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dedicated to protecting renters from housing discrimination, investigating landlords who misuse Section 8 vouchers, and enforce housing standards for renters. The Fair Housing Agency will also conduct audits to hold landlords and sellers engaged in housing discrimination accountable.

He’ll also create a commission to establish a financial relief program to the victims of predatory lending, mortgage fraud, redlining and those who are still underwater on their mortgages as a result of the 2008 crash which will address the fact that Black Americans lost 40 percent of their wealth in the 2009 housing crisis and were directly targeted by predatory lenders. Bernie will also cancel all $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt. This proposal would cut the racial wealth gap for young African Americans by more than half– from 12:1 to 5:1

Steyer: Yes. My plan builds on my experience in affordable housing. Beneficial State Bank, a community bank I founded with my wife Kat Taylor, has supported the construction and renovation of 6,600 affordable homes.

Warren: Yes. Decades of outright discrimination by the federal government denied Black families the same kinds of homeownership subsidies available to white families. Then government regulators ignored warning signs as predatory financial institutions targeted minority communities with subprime mortgages that sucked billions of dollars in wealth out of those communities. The Black homeownership rate today is nearly the same as it was when housing discrimination was legal. To tackle this structural problem, my Housing Plan for America includes a historic down payment assistance program targeted at families in formerly redlined areas. My plan will also lower rents, take a first step in closing the racial wealth gap, and make it easier for Americans to access affordable housing.

Q24: Do you support increased funding for Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs)?

Biden: Yes. I will expand flexible funding for the Community Development Block Grant program.

Bloomberg: Yes. Mike’s housing proposals address the nation’s severe shortage of affordable housing, including calling for an increase in federal spending in programs like Public Housing Capital Fund, the HOME program, Community Development Block Grants. In addition, the proposal sets aside $10 billion for a competition to reward municipalities that offer the best solutions to restrictive zoning and other obstacles, as well as increasing funding for federal housing vouchers and reforming them.

Buttigieg: Yes. I support dramatically increasing funding for Community Development Block Grants.

De La Fuente: Yes. As president, I will sign into law increased funding for Community Development Block Grants.

Klobuchar: Yes. Senator Klobuchar believes the CDBG program is an effective means to revitalize low- and moderate-income communities across the country and has strongly opposed the Trump Administration’s attempts to eliminate these grants.

Sanders: Yes. Bernie has long fought to increase funding for CDBGs. As President, Bernie will increase funding for CDBGs.

Steyer: Yes. I will increase funding for Community Development Block Grants to resource programs that help with equitable local economic development, affordable housing, transit-oriented development, disaster resilience, and infrastructure.

Warren: Yes. CDBGs are a great example of how the federal government can be a strong partner for local leaders, who know our communities best, to build opportunities for our families. As a senator, I’ve fought against proposed cuts to the Community Development Block Grant program, and as president I’ll fight to increase funding for them. I’ve also committed to fully funding the Indian Community Development Block Grant.

Q25: Do you have a plan that protects people from predatory lenders and sub-prime loans?

Biden: Yes. Homeownership is how many families save and build wealth. I will hold financial institutions accountable for discriminatory practices and tackle racial bias that leads homes in communities of color being assessed by appraisers below their fair value. I will restore the federal government’s power to enforce settlements against discriminatory lenders. The Trump Administration has stripped the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity – a division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – of its power to enforce settlements against lenders found to have discriminated against borrowers—for example by charging significantly higher interest rates for people of color than white individuals. I will return power to division so it can protect consumers from discrimination.

Bloomberg: Yes. Mike recognizes that generations of discriminatory public policy — such as redlining, which effectively denied federal loan guarantees to minorities — have prevented some Americans from accumulating housing wealth and left them concentrated in high-poverty, low-opportunity neighborhoods.

As president, Mike would take an evidence-based approach to addressing inequities in housing access and wealth, and enforce laws designed to ensure that developers, landlords and lenders act fairly.

He will create a Housing Fairness Commission, funded with an initial $10 billion, to work with municipalities and nonprofits on testing policies aimed at reversing the effects of discrimination and expanding programs that work.
He will expand Fair Housing Act protections to include all relevant forms of discrimination, such as family status, veteran status, sexual orientation and source of funds.
He will enforce fair lending laws and keep gathering the data needed to do so.
He will revive HUD’s efforts to enforce progress on housing desegregation (under its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule) and ensure people’s right to challenge discriminatory policies in the courts (under its disparate impact rule).

Buttigieg: Yes. It is unacceptable that the most financially vulnerable consumers are also those who pay the most for basic financial services. The CFPB has the authority to address this inequity, and must. As President, I will pass strict regulations on predatory lenders, including restoring and expanding the CFPB’s enforcement authorities. In particular, I will strengthen the CFPB’s ability to protect student and veteran borrowers from predatory loan and debt-collection practices. Rather than protect vulnerable borrowers and those to whom our country owes the greatest debt, this current administration has chosen to prioritize the well-being of the financial services industry.

De La Fuente: Yes. The first thing we must do is strengthen the Consumer Financial Investor’s Bureau rules on payday lending and its ability to enforce rules at the federal level and in partnership with the states. To the extent possible, the CFIB must mandate at the national level and encourage at the state level uniform criteria around financial literacy. The debt traps that families find themselves in are unconscionable and strip the dignity from a person.

Klobuchar: Yes. Senator Klobuchar helped lead legislation as part of the Dodd-Frank Act to protect homebuyers from predatory lending practices. As President, she will direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Justice Department and other agencies to prosecute unscrupulous payday lenders that engage in predatory practices and charge customers exorbitant interest rates. She will also direct the CFPB to aggressively enforce rules she helped include in the Dodd-Frank Act to prohibit lenders from receiving hidden payments for steering consumers to higher cost loans and improving underwriting standards to ensure borrowers can repay their loans.

Sanders: Yes. As a result of the 2008 crash, millions of Americans lost their homes, jobs, and life savings while Wall Street received the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world with no strings attached. Black Americans alone lost 40 percent of their wealth in the 2009 housing crisis and were directly targeted by predatory lenders. That is outrageous. When Bernie is in the White House, we will:

End the mass sale of mortgages to Wall Street vulture funds and thoroughly investigate and regulate the practices of large rental housing investors and owners.
Make data such as evictions, rent increases, and safety violations for large landlords available to the public and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Increase enforcement to protect families against fraudulent, deceptive, and abusive lending practices and ensure all mortgage costs are clear, risks are visible, and nothing is buried in fine print.
Implement legislation to prevent abusive “contract for deed” transactions and use existing authority to protect communities of color, which for too long have been exploited by this practice.
Protect consumers currently participating in “contract for deed” agreements by ensuring aggressive protections and decent standards for the consumers.
Create an independent National Fair Housing Agency similar to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dedicated to protecting renters from housing discrimination, investigating landlords who misuse Section 8 vouchers, and enforce housing standards for renters. The Fair Housing Agency will also conduct audits to hold landlords and sellers engaged in housing discrimination accountable.
Create a commission to establish a financial relief program to the victims of predatory lending, mortgage fraud, redlining and those who are still underwater on their mortgages as a result of the 2008 Wall Street crash. This program shall include down payment assistance, mortgage relief, or rental assistance. This program must include protections to ensure that the financial relief it provides goes to the people who need it and not the Wall Street speculators who caused the crisis.

Steyer: Yes. Predatory lending is a big problem in our country, and large corporate banks have taken advantage of the American people for too long. I support aggressive enforcement and prosecution of lenders who take advantage of consumers and burden them with debt to increase their own bottom line. I also support the Student Borrower Bill of Rights and strongly believe in the importance of eliminating predatory lending so that banking works for all Americans, and not just those at the top. Banks are anchor institutions in a community and they must earn the trust of community members and be held accountable to serve the communities that keep them in business. And many communities, especially in rural America, currently lack a full service bank. As the banking industry has consolidated, rural residents have less access to capital, which is another problem that must be addressed in any comprehensive banking policy.

Warren: Yes. Wall Street’s greed led to the 2008 financial crisis. People were tricked, squeezed, misled and outright cheated by lenders. They were handed loans the big banks knew they couldn’t pay off. Black and Latinx families were targeted with the worst-of-the-worst mortgages. These financial giants crashed our economy, costing millions of Americans their homes, their jobs, and their savings. Today, the Black- white homeownership gap is larger than it was back when housing discrimination was legal in our country. I’ve spent most of my career studying why families go broke and I raised the alarm that a crisis was coming. In the aftermath, I fought for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, built public support for it, and President Obama signed it into law in 2010. Then I helped build the agency up from scratch. Today, the CFPB helps students, seniors, veterans and other consumers who have been cheated by predatory lenders and other bad actors. Since it opened, the CFPB has forced the big financial institutions to return more than $12 billion directly to the people they cheated — and I’ll protect it, strengthen it, and empower the CFPB to hold financial institutions accountable. I’ll crack down on predatory practices to end the financial industry’s exploitation of students who are just looking for a way to pay for college. And I’ll take on “land contracts,” predatory loans that are frequently targeted at communities of color.

Q26: Do you support federal policies designed to balance gentrification with the interests of not displacing existing residents?

Biden: Yes. I will build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s efforts to increase the availability of affordable housing in areas experiencing gentrification, including through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), which creates incentives for the private market to invest in affordable housing. In addition, I will work to eliminate exclusionary zoning where appropriate and promote inclusionary zoning requirements that proactively set aside a certain percentage of new development for low- or moderate-income people.

Bloomberg: Yes. Mike will make sure that efforts to revitalize neighborhoods are balanced with the interests of existing residents.

Buttigieg: Yes. Low-income individuals shouldn’t be prevented from continuing to live in or move into the neighborhoods their communities have called home. I am committed to promoting inclusive development and combating gentrification and displacement. In addition to reinstating the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, I will charge my HUD and Treasury leadership to address gentrification and displacement, particularly in high-cost cities. I will do this by supporting public-private partnerships that allow long-term residents to remain in place, studying the development of a new “stabilization” housing voucher, and investing in low and middle-income housing development. My administration will also work to ensure that, where possible, new development leverages vacant and publicly-owned land in order to reduce displacement.

De La Fuente: Yes. The influx of new, wealthier people into America’s communities and neighborhoods must be balanced with an equal balance of investment in revitalization. We MUST support and strengthen provisions like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and the promotion of affordable housing goals to help fight back against cultural displacement. Inclusive zoning laws, taxation, rent control, and other policies are critical to ensure that there is a home for everyone. If we do not do this, America loses its soul.

Klobuchar: Yes. In some neighborhoods, neglected properties make investments to improve living conditions or build property value economically infeasible. Neighboring blighted and abandoned properties further reduce the possibility of investment, leading to a downward spiral. Senator Klobuchar will advocate for a new federal tax credit, similar to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, to encourage investment in family-owned homes in distressed neighborhoods. In addition, Senator Klobuchar will launch a major initiative to retrofit existing homes to reduce their emissions and address environmental hazards through grants and tax credits that support insulation, weatherization improvements, upgrades to heating and cooling systems, and replacement of lead pipes and other health hazards.

Sanders: Yes. While we expand and build new housing, we must ensure that current tenants and homeowners are not forced out of their homes or neighborhoods. We must also ensure that wealthy and exclusionary neighborhoods do not prevent new development, forcing gentrification and displacement in low-income and minority areas. In addition, developers and speculators must not reap profits from these neighborhoods without reinvesting in the existing community. Currently, nine states do not allow for inclusionary zoning rules that require developers to set aside affordable housing on their projects. That has got to change. We also need to promote integration and end local segregation that excludes low-income and minority tenants and homeowners. Restrictive zoning ordinances are a racist legacy of Jim Crow-era efforts to enforce segregation. We need to make federal housing and transportation funds contingent on remedying these zoning ordinances and coordinate with state and local officials and leaders to ensure equitable zoning.

Federal funds must no longer be used to segregate and disrupt our communities. The interstate highway expansion often cut through low-income and minority communities, segregated urban areas, and contributed to sprawl. We must reorient federal policy to create livable, connected communities for all.

When Bernie is president, he will:

Create an office within the Department of Housing and Urban Development to coordinate and work with states and municipalities to strengthen rent control and tenant protections, implement fair and inclusive zoning ordinances, streamline review processes and direct funding where these changes are made. This office will convene key leaders, academics, experts, local officials, renters, tenants, and homeowners to create and implement these necessary solutions.

Preempt laws that prevent inclusionary zoning for luxury developments.

End exclusionary and restrictive zoning ordinances and replace them with zoning that encourages racial, economic, and disability integration that makes housing more affordable.

Require that recipients of federal funding from the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development make these important zoning reforms.

Provide funding to states that preempt local exclusionary zoning ordinances to make housing more equitable, accessible and affordable for all.

Make federal funding contingent on creating livable communities.

Encourage zoning and development that promotes integration and access to public transportation to reduce commuting time, congestion and long car commutes.

Prioritize projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create walkable and livable communities, and reduce urban sprawl.

Encourage zoning and development designed to expand and maximize the number of units fully accessible to people with disabilities.

Place a 25 percent House Flipping tax on speculators who sell a non-owner-occupied property, if sold for more than it was purchased within 5 years of purchase.

Impose a 2 percent Empty Homes tax on the property value of vacant, owned homes to bring more units into the market and curb the use of housing as speculative investment.

Encourage “circuit breakers” on property taxes to protect homeowners in gentrifying neighborhoods from being priced out of their own homes as their property values rise.

And when Bernie was mayor of Burlington, Vermont, he took the lead in establishing the first municipally-funded community land trust to provide affordable homeownership opportunities to working families. Now called the Champlain Housing Trust, it now manages over 600 shared equity homes and has helped over 1,000 families become first-time homebuyers. In a community land trust, families purchase homes at affordable prices and agree to sell them back to the trust at a restricted price. This keeps homes affordable in perpetuity and builds wealth for families who currently are priced out of homeownership.

As president, Bernie will provide grants to states, cities, and towns to establish their own community land trusts that will enable over 1 million households to purchase a shared equity home over the next 25 years. Further, when those families begin building wealth and move on to conventional homeownership, the homes will remain affordable for future owners.

This program will also combat gentrification. For example, the Douglass Community Land Trust in Washington, D.C., which operates in gentrified areas, has successfully helped many families stay in the neighborhoods they grew up in or have lived in for decades. Moreover, this program will promote resident-owned manufactured housing communities to give residents more control over their housing costs and to prevent evictions.

As president, Bernie will:

Invest $50 billion over 10 years to provide grants to start and expand community land trusts and other shared equity homeownership models. This funding will enable over 1 million households to purchase affordable homes over the next 25 years.

Invest an additional $15 billion to enact a 21st Century Homestead Act, based on the work of Mehrsa Baradaran, to purchase and revitalize abandoned properties to create community and individual wealth and assets for historically disadvantaged communities.

Instruct HUD to assist communities establishing shared equity homeownership by ensuring they can access existing federal housing programs, and help new organizations build the necessary capacity to succeed.

Steyer: Yes. Every city gets its soul from having its residents come from diverse backgrounds and from every kind of income level. Cities gain character from long-term residents who have invested deeply in their neighborhood life. We must center fairness for the people who have strong roots in a neighborhood to enable them to thrive in their community as it changes and ensure through strong tenant protections that long-term, aging residents will continue to have a home in the communities where they have built their lives. We will work with people who have called communities home for generations to help them build equity as the neighborhood gains wealth, so that long-time community members’ economic fortunes rise as neighborhoods prosper.

Warren: Yes. A full-time, minimum-wage worker can’t afford a two- bedroom apartment anywhere in the nation. Gentrification is displacing communities of color, rising rents are crushing millions of families, and landlords are exploiting their power over tenants. A 2017 study in Virginia found that Black tenants were more likely to be evicted, even accounting for different income levels. Research has also shown that low- income women in Black and Latinx neighborhoods face a heightened risk of eviction. That’s why I have a plan to secure tenants’ rights nationwide – including by creating a federal just cause eviction standard, a right to lease renewal, protections against constructive eviction, and tenants’ right to organize. And I’ll fight to create a new tenants’ cause of action that allows tenants to sue landlords who threaten or begin an illegal eviction. I’ll also push to create a new Tenant Protection Bureau within the Department of Housing and Urban Development – modeled after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – to enforce tenants’ rights, take on bad actors, and make sure landlords keep affordable housing affordable for working families. I’ll also create a national small dollar grant program to help make sure families aren’t evicted because of financial emergencies. Massachusetts pioneered several programs that provide small grants to help families facing a one-time budget crunch, like the Homestart program, which provides grants of on average $700 and some wraparound services to help families avoid eviction. It’s been reported that 95% of their eviction prevention program recipients remain in their homes four years later. I’ll fight to scale this program up nationwide. And I’ll stop the exploitation of tenants by corporate landlords, including by blocking federal dollars from going to predatory landlords and lenders with a long history of harassing tenants, forcing tenants to live in dangerous or indecent conditions, or redlining communities. You can read more about my plan to protect and empower renters here: https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/protecting-empowering- renters.

Q27: Do you support federal policy to eliminate redlining that disproportionally impact low income minority communities?

Biden: Yes. I have a long record of taking on banks and fighting to eliminate redlining. Homeownership is how many families save and build wealth. I will end redlining and other discriminatory and unfair practices in the housing market by protecting homeowners and renters from abusive lenders and landlords, eliminate local and state housing regulations that perpetuate discrimination. I will roll back Trump Administration policies gutting fair lending and fair housing protections for homeowners. I will implement the Obama-Biden Administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule requiring communities receiving certain federal funding to proactively examine housing patterns and identify and address policies that have a discriminatory effect. The Trump Administration suspended this rule in 2018. I will ensure the effective and rigorous enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. And, I will reinstate the Obama-Biden Administration’s risk-sharing program, which funded thousands of units of affordable rental housing in partnership with housing finance agencies.

Bloomberg: Yes. Mike’s Housing Affordability plan will acknowledge and fix racial housing inequality. He will bring homeownership to 1 million more African-Americans through down-payment assistance, fair access to banking and financing, and enforcing fair lending laws. He will also expand Fair Housing Act protections to include all relevant forms of discrimination. Finally he will fully enforce Department of Housing and Urban Development rules, such as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, that require cities to demonstrate progress in addressing segregation

Buttigieg: Yes. Yes. My 21st Century Community Homestead Act is designed specifically to support Black residents in low- income and historically redlined areas. https://peteforamerica.com/policies/douglass- plan/#TheCommunityHomesteadAct

De La Fuente: Yes. Under my administration, I will push for legislation that criminalizes redlining.

Klobuchar: Yes. As President, Senator Klobuchar will take action to restore oversight to eliminate discriminatory lending practices. She will direct financial regulators to restore Community Reinvestment Act protections, develop policies to encourage financial institutions to make loans and investments in local communities, especially communities in need, and conduct greater outreach to assess the true credit needs of certain areas. In addition, she will update our laws to counter new forms of discrimination, like digital redlining and racial bias built into algorithms that are playing a larger role in everything from hiring decisions to medical care.

Sanders: Yes. Bernie will end the travesty of modern day redlining and other forms of housing discrimination that still impact black people, by investigating and regulating the practices of large rental housing investors and owners, preventing abusive “contract for deed” transactions.

When Bernie is in the White House, he will aggressively defend and promote the legal protections of fair housing, and make sure that no one is denied housing based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender or disability.

Bernie will create a commission to establish a financial relief program to the victims of predatory lending, mortgage fraud, redlining and those who are still underwater on their mortgages as a result of the 2008 Wall Street crash. This program shall include down payment assistance, mortgage relief, or rental assistance. This program must include protections to ensure that the financial relief it provides goes to the people who need it and not the Wall Street speculators who caused the crisis.

Steyer: Yes. America’s moral debt must be reckoned with to account for our history of segregation and discrimination. The Federal Housing Authority’s complicit compliance in redlining denied African Americans the opportunity to purchase homes in resource rich communities has relegated them to communities with fewer federal and state resources, costing African Americans billions in community wealth and leaving communities with greater environmental pollution burdens. As president, I will provide $156 billion in funding to previously redlined neighborhoods to build equity for homeowners, reduce environmental pollution, and grow community economic strength through well-paid, clean energy jobs.

Warren: Yes. I’ll strengthen fair housing law and enforcement, giving HUD the tools to take on modern-day redlining. We need to renew our fight against housing discrimination, and I’ll start on day one. I’ll restore the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which the Trump administration put on ice and I’ll withdraw Trump’s racist proposed “mixed status” rule. I’ll protect the disparate impact rule, which the Trump administration is trying to weaken, so that tenants have the tools to challenge zoning regulations that discriminate against people with disabilities, predatory lending practices that target communities of color, and algorithmic redlining.

Q22: Do you have a plan to address affordable housing for low- and middle-incomehouseholds?