Angela Alsobrooks Calls On Congress To 'Leverage Private Sector Dollars' To Tackle Housing Costs

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During last Wednesday's Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) questioned witnesses about affordable housing initiatives, and the impact President Trump's tariffs could have on new home construction costs.  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Well, Rochester has been here the entire hearing and I thank you for your patience. It took a

00:04while to get to you, but truly appreciate your willingness to stick around on such an important

00:08topic that many of us have shared experiences that hopefully lead to shared solutions as well.

00:14Senator Alsop Brooks.

00:16Thanks so much, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Warren, and to this committee,

00:20thank you so much to the panelists for being here today. We all recognize,

00:26I know it's been said several times today, that home ownership is a key feature to building wealth

00:30in our country. And when I think about this subject, I think about my parents. My mother,

00:34who spent her 50 years as a receptionist. My father, who was a car salesman. They married

00:40at 21 and 22. And at that time, within five years of their marriage, they could afford to buy a home.

00:46That is no longer the case. It's no longer the expectation for my own daughter, who's 19.

00:51So I've spent the last several years, I was county executive, really focused on expanding

00:57home ownership, working to really leverage private sector dollars with public sector dollars. We were

01:03able to build or preserve about 5,000 units in about a three-year period. And so I wonder,

01:09the first question for Dr. Glacier, I wonder if you can speak to the need to really better allocate

01:15private capital into projects that promote home construction and ownership.

01:21Thank you, Senator. I also have a 19-year-old daughter. And so your comment about that

01:27made me just feel how much I agreed with your sentiment about how utterly implausible a home

01:31within seven years would be for her. I think it's fundamentally, when housing worked,

01:42private capital went to provide housing where demand was highest. And you certainly see this

01:47in the data. You see this in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, both across metropolitan areas and

01:51within metropolitan areas, that we built housing in places where demand was higher,

01:55where prices were higher. And that building process helped those prices come down. That

01:59building process took care of demand. That really ceased. And you see that in my Exhibit 3, that the

02:06places that are expensive don't build a lot. The places that build a lot aren't expensive.

02:11And that's because the regulatory differences across space are determining where private

02:16capital is going, not the demand, not the economic core of what makes one place more valuable than

02:21the other, not the sort of fundamental need for opportunity in one place. And so these local

02:26regulations are shaping our country. They're shaping where private capital goes. They're

02:30shaping where we get new homes. They're shaping where we get new businesses. And they're all

02:34being decided at a hyper-local level, which I love federalism in lots of different ways. I love

02:38individual choice. But none of these local town councils or whichever your community is making,

02:43is making a decision saying, what would be best for America in terms of what I'm doing? And

02:47that's, again, why I think it's so valuable that your committee is taking up this topic,

02:51that we sort of need a national voice on this. Thank you. Just another question. You made a

02:59statement, and you said that America's housing crisis, Dr. Glacier, was a deep, self-inflicted

03:05wound. And I'm concerned, you know, because we've heard a lot about tariffs recently. And I

03:10introduced some legislation to actually produce some data just to give us an idea about how it

03:15will increase or how it will impact cost of home building, which I think can further exacerbate the

03:22supply shortage that we see and keep the prices high. So I just wonder what impacts you believe

03:26President Trump's proposed tariffs will have on imported materials and how it will affect the

03:32cost of home building in the United States. For 250 years, economists have generally thought that

03:39tariffs impose costs on consumers. That is certainly true. And this is some, you know,

03:45I am not going to weigh in on whatever the complicated foreign policy dance that's going

03:50on that I don't understand, quite frankly, and I'm not going to do so. And so I'm not going to

03:54second guess that. But certainly, if tariffs stay high, they're going to impose costs. And we're

03:58going to be able to see that over time. Thank you. Just a final question for our mayor here.

04:05I know that you're in fiscal year 2024, both the city of Baltimore, as well as your city of

04:11Dallas received over $30 million in total federal support from HUD. And that includes the funding

04:18allocated through the home program, which I know we've heard a lot about today. I'm a co-sponsor

04:23of the legislation before this committee that would reauthorize and strengthen it. But would

04:26you just talk about the impact to Dallas communities if the funding for HUD programs

04:31is significantly reduced or eliminated? Thank you for the question. And a similar

04:36question was asked earlier, and I'll give you a similar answer, because it's the truth.

04:43The specific impact, I don't have the data in front of me to tell you, you know, what that

04:48has been. But I will tell you, as far as the whole array of federal programs related to housing,

04:56aimed at the lower income end of the spectrum, even before I became the mayor,

05:03but certainly in the past six years, I do see that there is a value to these programs. I do

05:08see that they do create some increase year over year in the available housing stock aimed at that

05:17end of the income spectrum. My reason for really, really wanting to participate in today's discussion

05:24and what I will tell you is that I believe that that amount, even in a good year, is in the,

05:32you know, 3 to 5,000 unit range or something like that. And what we really need to be looking at

05:40are things that are going to substantially increase the amount of housing that's available

05:46throughout the city of Dallas across income levels. And again, I'm talking about creating

05:52enough housing where it relieves pressure for everyone from the young professional, your

05:58daughter, when she wants to move to Dallas and stop renting an apartment and become a homeowner.

06:04And to the folks who are currently living in a far-flung suburb who would like, but who work in

06:11Dallas, maybe they're a barista at a Starbucks, but what they're making, they have to live very,

06:18very far away. Workforce housing, things like that. I feel like we have to force ourselves to

06:25get out of this box of only thinking about housing affordability in terms of these federal programs

06:30and how much more money we can put into these and how many more people we can serve with those

06:34and start thinking about how to have wholesale movements along the supply curve and the amount

06:40of housing that we're producing. And I don't think there's a source other than the private sector to

06:45do it. I mean, if I really, I would tell you, if I really believe that government could do it,

06:51I would say it, but I don't think they can. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

06:54Thank you, Senator Gallego.

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