HRES1299-119

What This Bill Does

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is a large housing and financial-services package. It directs HUD, USDA, VA, Treasury, banking regulators, and the Federal Reserve to change how federal housing programs, mortgage products, community development grants, rural housing programs, bank-resolution rules, and central-bank digital currency authority work. The housing side tries to increase supply by funding repairs, planning, zoning reform, modular and manufactured housing, small-dollar mortgages, CDBG-funded construction, HOME program reforms, and interagency rural housing coordination. The financial side loosens or clarifies several community-bank and credit-union rules, adds oversight for systemic-risk bank rescues, and prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing a broadly available retail central bank digital currency unless Congress authorizes it.

Who Benefits and How

Low- and moderate-income homeowners, renters, rural borrowers, manufactured-home buyers, and delinquent FHA, VA, USDA, Section 184, and Section 184A borrowers benefit from new counseling opportunities, whole-home repair grants, small-dollar mortgage assistance, expanded CDBG and HOME eligible activities, streamlined USDA and HUD environmental review paths, and better coordination across HUD, USDA, and VA housing programs. State and local governments, Tribes, public housing agencies, nonprofit housing groups, private developers, construction firms, qualified design and engineering firms, and research institutions gain access to HUD model codes, pilot grants, zoning and planning grants, innovation funding, public-land databases, and environmental review procedures that can lower development time and make more infill, modular, point-access block, rural, and affordable housing projects feasible. Community banks, credit unions, small financial institutions, and new bank organizers benefit from higher reciprocal-deposit and custodial-deposit flexibility, less frequent board meetings for well-rated credit unions, a Treasury mentor-protege program, streamlined de novo application reviews, and a capital phase-in period for qualifying community banks.

Who Bears the Burden and How

HUD, USDA, VA, Treasury, the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OCC, NCUA, FHA, GAO, and the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness take on substantial implementation, rulemaking, reporting, database, pilot-program, study, and oversight duties. HUD-assisted housing counseling agencies, public housing agencies, HOME and CDBG grantees, whole-home repair implementing organizations, eligible landlords receiving repair loans, and federally assisted rental housing owners face new performance reviews, resident-consent rules, reporting, accessibility, affordability, rent-increase, tenant-protection, land-database, and program-integrity requirements. Large institutional investors in single-family homes bear the clearest private-sector restriction: the bill limits purchases of single-family homes, requires certifications and consumer-reporting checks, creates civil penalties and FTC enforcement, and gives state attorneys general enforcement authority. Large bank acquirers and global systemically important banking organizations also face more scrutiny when failed-bank acquisitions or FDIC least-cost exceptions would increase concentration.

Key Provisions

• Requires HUD reviews of housing counseling organizations, allows counselor retraining or suspension when performance suggests incompetence, permits nonrenewal of assistance after notice and informal conference, and gives 30-day delinquent borrowers on FHA, Section 184/184A, VA, or USDA loans an opportunity for foreclosure-mitigation counseling.
• Directs HUD to issue point-access block building guidance, coordinate with the International Code Council, and run pilot grants for single-stair residential building designs while preserving state and local building-code authority.
• Creates or expands housing supply tools: USDA infill-site environmental-review exemptions, public land databases for CDBG grantees, FHA small-dollar mortgage pilots for loans of $100,000 or less, temperature-sensor pilots for public and federally assisted housing, zoning best-practice guidelines, opportunity-zone grant preferences, whole-home repair grants and forgivable loans, CDBG new-construction eligibility, HUD environmental review designations, affordable housing planning grants, innovation grants, modular housing research, and manufactured-home loan modernization.
• Reauthorizes and reforms HOME Investment Partnerships by adjusting authorization, small-project requirements, and related program rules, while separately revising rural housing preservation, rural community development, homelessness incentive, public housing accountability, and HUD-USDA-VA coordination provisions.
• Changes mortgage and appraisal systems by creating incentives for small-dollar loan originators, studying appraisal barriers, modifying FHA safety-and-soundness reporting, requiring annual testimony from housing regulators, and adding uniform residential loan application collection for military service status.
• Changes community-bank and credit-union rules by exempting certain custodial deposits from brokered-deposit treatment up to 20 percent of liabilities, increasing reciprocal-deposit thresholds by bank size, modernizing credit-union board meeting frequency, adding Treasury mentor-protege support for small financial institutions, streamlining de novo bank applications, and requiring rural depository studies.
• Adds bank-failure oversight by requiring GAO reviews of systemic-risk determinations, allowing FDIC least-cost exceptions to avoid further concentration in global systemically important banks under criteria, and tightening standards for interstate failed-bank mergers when no qualified non-prohibited bidder exists.
• Restricts large institutional investor purchases of single-family homes, with exceptions for new construction, renovation-to-rent, homeownership programs, nonprofit or government buyers, and similar cases, and authorizes FTC and state attorney general enforcement.
• Bars the Federal Reserve or reserve banks from issuing a broadly available direct-liability central bank digital currency through financial institutions or intermediaries, while preserving permissionless private dollar-denominated assets and sunsetting the provision on December 31, 2030.