Biden Administration Turns Up Some Heat on Renter Protections

One of the recurring themes of the Biden administration has been to address the needs of consumers who rent their living spaces. The White House released a new fact sheet on how it plans to extend protections to renters.

One of the difficulties it faces is the predominance and power that state and local governments have, creating a “a patchwork of state and local laws and legal processes that leave far too many renters with little recourse when housing providers fail to comply with the law or the lease agreement,” as the White House stated.

But there are steps the executive branch can take without the cooperation of Congress. Earlier in July, the Biden administration had already focused on ‘junk fees’ for renters. In this latest attempt with a focus on rental housing, some of the fees the White House mentioned were application fees that exceed the cost of performing background and credit checks. “Even after renters secure housing, they are often surprised to be charged mandatory fees on top of their rent, including ‘convenience fees’ to pay rent online, fees for things like mail sorting and trash collection, and even so-called ‘January fees’ charged for no clear reason at the beginning of a new calendar year.” Another negative aspect of hidden fees is that they make comparison shopping more difficult to do.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is starting a new $85 million program to “provide communities with funding to identify and remove barriers to affordable housing production and preservation.” Grants will run up to $10 million “to jurisdictions that have an acute demand for affordable housing and are working to identify, address, or remove barriers to housing production and preservation.” Communities can use the funding for planning and policy activities to establish higher-density zoning and rezoning for “higher-density zoning and rezoning for multifamily and mixed-use housing, streamlining affordable housing development, and reducing requirements related to parking and other land use restrictions.”

The Department of Transportation is starting a Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods (RCN) program. It will provide “up to $3.16 billion for planning and capital construction projects that prioritize disadvantaged communities and improve access to daily destinations.” That includes better connections to affordable housing. A $450 million Regional Partnership Challenge will promote regional partnerships “to tackle persistent equitable access and mobility challenges, with land use reform as a key priority.”

“HUD announced new guidelines that increase the dollar amount threshold at which a multifamily loan is considered a large loan and is subject to additional underwriting requirements from $75 million to $120 million,” The White House said. “This change will simplify underwriting and reduce development costs for large multifamily properties financed with FHA-insured mortgages without presenting undue risk to FHA, significantly expanding commitments for affordable housing financing. HUD will review this large loan limit annually.”

HUD also has new guidance out for public housing authorities and multifamily housing owners in the Rental Assistance Demonstration program, providing new tools to “repair and build deeply affordable housing.”