For most of the past decade, the conventional wisdom in housing policy circles was simple: the federal government doesn’t touch local land use. Washington handles demand-side tools like housing choice vouchers and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, and zoning, supply, and production are left entirely to states and localities. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which became law in July 2026, represents the most significant departure from that norm in a generation.
David Garcia, Deputy Director of Policy at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, joined HAC-Ed to walk through what’s actually in the bill, what still needs to happen before any of it produces results, and where the opportunities and gaps are for California practitioners.
How We Got Here
Garcia opened with the political context. In the 118th Congress, the most ambitious federal housing supply bill on the table was the YIMBY Act, which would have simply required localities to report on what they were doing to reduce barriers to housing, with no enforcement and no consequences if they did nothing. Even that couldn’t make it to the floor.
Fast forward two years and the Overton window had shifted dramatically. The driver being that housing costs are no longer a coastal, blue-state issue. They’ve become a kitchen-table concern across red and purple states alike, and a lot of the members elected to the 119th Congress were sent to Washington specifically because their constituents were frustrated. That political pressure, combined with a new and unlikely working relationship between Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), produced something surprising: a bipartisan package that passed the Senate 85-5 and the House 358-32.
The President didn’t sign it, but didn’t veto it either. And after the ten-day constitutional window expired while Congress was still in session, it became law automatically.
What’s In the Bill
The ROAD Act runs several hundred pages and contains over 50 provisions. Garcia focused on the ones most relevant to California practitioners.
CDBG flexibility. Cities can now use up to 20% of their Community Development Block Grant allocations for affordable housing construction – something previously prohibited. For larger cities receiving millions in CDBG dollars annually, this could be a meaningful tool for completing an affordable capital stack. However, total CDBG appropriations didn’t increase, which means redirecting dollars to housing means taking them from other constituencies that have relied on them. That’s a political challenge for city councils. One member noted that CDBG-DR funds (the disaster recovery version of the program) have been permanently authorized under ROAD, which matters for communities in places like Santa Cruz and Monterey counties that have used those dollars after flooding. Garcia confirmed that permanent authorization doesn’t change the appropriations dynamic; the program still needs to be funded through annual budget negotiations.
The Build Now Act – stick and carrot. The most structurally novel provision of the entire bill. Cities with high vacancy rates and high costs that aren’t building enough housing relative to their historic baseline can actually lose CDBG dollars under a new federal formula. Cities that build above their baseline can receive additional funds. The authors: Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) and Elizabeth Warren; another supposed improbable pairing. Garcia noted this provision won’t kick in for three years, giving HUD time to publish the formula and develop guidelines. But cities that want to protect their funding should start thinking now about how they demonstrate housing production.
HOME program reform. HOME funds can now also pay for affordable housing infrastructure (not just the structure itself), with new NEPA exemptions and streamlining provisions to make the program more flexible overall.
Manufactured housing – chassis removal. Generating excitement in the manufactured housing world, ROAD fixes a long known issue. For decades, HUD required all manufactured homes to be built on a permanent steel chassis, originally designed to allow the home to be moved. In practice, more than 90% of manufactured homes never leave the site they’re placed on. ROAD removes this requirement. We’re hopeful to see lower construction costs, new multi-story typologies that weren’t feasible before, and potentially a significant expansion of what the HUD manufactured housing code can support. California has already passed a bill to align state language with the new federal standard.
RAD expansion. The Rental Assistance Demonstration program, which allows public housing authorities to leverage private debt to preserve and rehabilitate units, is being significantly expanded. The program has been through a political rollercoaster (started under Obama, pulled back under Trump 1.0, reinstated under Biden), but ROAD puts it on much more stable footing. Garcia flagged that the Terner Center has done work on RAD’s potential not just for preservation but for building new public housing units – a less-explored application worth watching.
MTW expansion. The Moving to Work program, which gives PHAs flexibility in how they deploy vouchers, was previously capped. ROAD lifts that cap significantly, allowing many more housing authorities to explore MTW status. One member from a supportive housing organization raised the question of voucher flexibility from the other direction – whether MTW could allow vouchers to be split or used at smaller scales, like tiny cabin models, where the municipality effectively serves as landlord. Garcia noted the Raj Chetty research on improved socioeconomic outcomes from housing mobility, and clarified that the ROAD change isn’t a program change but an expansion of which PHAs can participate in MTW.
HUD’s new land use mandate. The Housing Supply Frameworks Act, embedded in ROAD, directs HUD to develop expertise in land use and zoning for the first time, identifying best practices and providing technical assistance to localities that want to build more but lack internal capacity. This is a genuine institutional shift in what HUD is being asked to do. It’s also somewhat paradoxical given the significant HUD workforce reductions underway, and it’s unclear how HUD will build this capacity while shrinking.
What’s Not In the Bill
Garcia was explicit that ROAD’s gaps are as important to understand as its wins. So far, here’s what is left out:
Nothing on the demand side. No expansion of housing choice vouchers, no path to making them an entitlement. That was a deliberate decision to keep the bill within the bipartisan lane – Democrats and Republicans still don’t agree on demand-side tools, and including them would have sunk the package.
Tenant protections, or anti-displacement provisions.
Build America Buy America reform didn’t make it. BABA – the Biden-era rule requiring federally funded projects to source materials domestically – has become a significant cost burden for affordable housing developers, with a waiver process that’s complex, time-consuming, and increasingly difficult to navigate given HUD staff reductions. A bipartisan bill to exempt affordable housing from BABA couldn’t make it into ROAD due to union opposition. HUD has been asked to study the cost impacts, and a standalone BABA exemption bill is already moving in the new Congress. A member noted they’ve been tracking this issue closely, and that Bay Area advocates have been told directly that this is something the congressional delegation could help push forward.
Sam Liccardo’s ADU financing bills didn’t make it in time. Garcia flagged these as a missed opportunity, as they came too late in the process.
Nothing on middle-income homeownership. Ron Wyden’s middle-income tax credit bill has real bipartisan support but lives in the tax committees, which were kept out of ROAD’s jurisdiction deliberately.
Build More Housing Near Transit didn’t survive. This provision would have changed federal capital improvement scoring to prioritize transit investments in areas zoned for dense housing. It passed the Senate version but couldn’t survive the House Transportation Committee. Garcia expects it to come back.
What Happens Next and When to Expect Results
Garcia was clear-eyed about the gap between what’s been authorized and what will actually happen. Several things have to occur first.
HUD rulemaking takes time (public comment periods, internal review, significant staff capacity), the Build Now Act formula won’t even be published for three years. HUD’s reduced workforce makes all of these timelines even less certain.
States need to align their own laws. Many have adopted federal definitions wholesale; now they’ll need to update that language to conform with ROAD. California has already moved on manufactured housing, but others haven’t.
Cities have to make active choices about CDBG. The new flexibility to redirect up to 20% toward affordable housing construction requires a political decision that means making tradeoffs with constituencies that have relied on those dollars for other things.
And most of the new programs ROAD created – including the $200 million Innovation Fund for localities doing creative things around housing supply – have no money yet. Appropriations still have to happen. Until Congress funds them in a budget, they exist on paper only.
What This Means for HAC and Its Members
Garcia’s framing for the near term was practical: most of the leverage right now is at the local level, not federal. The question for practitioners is what in ROAD they can take advantage of directly, and what they need to push their city or county to act on first.
On advocacy, Garcia noted HAC members have deep technical expertise; they’re seeing on the ground where federal rules are creating barriers that aren’t being surfaced in Washington. The BABA friction, the manufactured housing zoning bans that cities haven’t updated, the CDBG redirecting decisions that no one is pushing localities to make are the kinds of issues that don’t get fixed unless practitioners name them and find the right legislator to take them to. Garcia flagged Sam Liccardo and, potentially, HAC endorsed Senator Scott Wiener as Bay Area members of Congress who are fluent on housing and worth engaging.
HAC is also at an early stage of thinking about what federal engagement looks like for the organization, as we were historically focused on California state and local policy. This session was, in part, an exploration of what that evolution might look like, and what members want from it. If you have thoughts on where federal policy is creating friction in your work, HAC staff would love to hear from you.
Stay connected with HAC to keep learning, keep building, and keep moving the needle. Have questions about the ROAD Act or want to connect with David Garcia? Reach Brianna at brianna@housingactioncoalition.org.
