Affordable housing gets a massive investment in this bill — over $130 billion across programs including $70 billion to repair public housing, $48 billion per year for a national Housing Trust Fund, $4 billion for a new Middle Class Housing Emergency Fund, and $5 billion to help homeowners in neighborhoods where homes are worth less than it costs to build them. First-time, first-generation homebuyers earning under 120% of the area median income could receive grants covering up to 3.5% of a home's value for a down payment, and descendants of Black veterans who served between 1944 and 1968 but never received their VA home loan benefit would temporarily gain eligibility. The bill also expands the Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, source of income (including housing vouchers), and veteran status. To pay for it, the bill makes significant changes to the estate tax: the exemption would drop from roughly $13 million to $3.5 million, rates would rise to as high as 65% on estates over $93 million, and estates worth more than $1 billion would face an additional 10% surcharge — changes that would primarily affect the wealthiest families and close several trust-based strategies commonly used to minimize estate taxes. The bill also strengthens the Community Reinvestment Act by extending oversight to nonbank mortgage lenders, penalizing banks that invest in fossil fuel expansion, and imposing real consequences — including restrictions on growth and executive pay clawbacks — on financial institutions that consistently fail to serve low-income communities.
Congressional Summary
American Housing and Economic Mobility Act of 2025This bill addresses housing affordability and availability through grants, housing programs, and oversight of financial institutions. The bill also makes certain changes to the estate tax, such as by generally increasing the rate.The Department of Housing and Urban Development shall provide grants to (1) state, local, and tribal governments to remove barriers to building affordable units, (2) states to assist borrowers who have negative equity in their homes, (3) state housing finance agencies to support construction of affordable rental housing and prevent tenant displacement and harassment, and (4) eligible individuals (generally, lower income individuals who are first generation homebuyers) to help them purchase their first homes.The bill establishes and provides funding for the first-time homeowner grant program and the affordable rental housing construction program, and it also funds existing rural housing programs.The bill also requires financial regulators to generally assess the effectiveness of financial institutions in meeting the credit and lending needs of their communities, particularly of underserved populations. The bill also expands fair housing protections to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, source of income, veteran status, or an individual's perceived membership in a protected class (e.g., an individual's perceived race or sex).Additionally, the bill modifies the estate tax in various ways, including by reducing the number of brackets to three, increasing the tax rates, and reducing the basic exemption amount. The bill also places additional taxes on high-income estates and trusts.
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- Senate
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in Senate
- Action Date
- 2025-03-11
- Date Added
- 2026-03-30