By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.
President and CEO,
National Newspaper
Publishers Association
President Donald Trump’s housing policy is shaping up to be both an economic and humanitarian disaster and if leaders across the political spectrum don’t act soon, the damage may be irreversible.
To be clear, housing policy was already broken long before Trump returned to office. But instead of tackling the root causes — like the chronic shortage of Section 8 vouchers and affordable units — some policymakers chose to blame tools like rent-pricing software, which simply reflect the market’s conditions.
Rather than confront the real barriers to affordability, politicians have chosen to target the messenger. That never made sense, and it still doesn’t — a point that Democratic Governor Jared Polis made clear last week by vetoing a bill to ban such technology. If we want lower rents, we don’t need to ban software that reports current prices. We need to build enough housing so the data reflects abundance, not scarcity.
Unfortunately, President Trump has not gotten this memo, and he is making our broken housing system worse. He has already driven up lumber prices with protectionist trade wars and targeted immigrant communities who make up a vital part of the construction workforce. Now, the president is laying the groundwork for another housing crisis that could rival 2008.
In late May, Trump announced he is “giving very serious consideration” to taking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public again. These government-backed mortgage giants were central players in the last financial collapse. Under pressure to expand homeownership without oversight, they helped inflate the subprime mortgage bubble. Ten million Americans lost their homes. The institutions got bailed out. Families didn’t.
To prevent that kind of disaster from recurring, the government placed both firms under conservatorship. Releasing them now would create the same reckless incentives that crashed the global economy, and it would benefit deep-pocketed investors just in time for the 2026 elections. When the next economic crash comes, everyday Americans, and especially Americans in underserved communities, will be the ones paying the price.
And it doesn’t stop there. Trump’s proposed budget would cut federal rental assistance by about 40% at a time when nearly half of renters are spending more than a third of their income on housing. “We would see, I think, homelessness escalate in a way that has been really unprecedented,” warned Kim Johnson of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Remaining funds would be handed to states as “block grants,” echoing past efforts to gut safety net programs through decentralization and attrition. This is not a serious answer to the housing crisis. It’s an ideological move that risks deepening inequality and instability that will result in a type of “housing apartheid.”
Policymakers from both parties should reject this approach and unite around a new vision: one that builds. Writers Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson call this the “abundance agenda.” In their book Abundance, they challenge local, state, and federal leaders to confront the self-imposed zoning restrictions and regulatory delays that have made it almost impossible to build enough housing.
“You cannot be the party of working families when the places you govern are places working families can no longer afford to live,” Klein wrote. That means reforming exclusionary zoning, streamlining permitting, and shifting the political culture that demonizes developers while ignoring demand. It means prioritizing supply, not just subsidies.
Because if we don’t solve the housing crisis ourselves, voters will turn to anyone who claims they will, even if the solutions are fake or destructive. The values are already there. What we need now is strategy and action. Increasing housing affordability and availability isn’t just good policy. It’s the only way to keep working Americans housed, the economy stable, and America’s future secure and inclusive.
