The White House kicked off a multiagency push on Friday to help finance real-estate developers convert more office buildings in big cities emptied by the pandemic into affordable housing, taking aim at the nation’s housing crisis.
The initiative looks to harness an existing $35 billion in low-cost loans already available through the Transportation Department to fund housing developments near transit hubs, folding it into the Biden administration’s clean energy push.
It also opens up additional funding sources and tax incentives, offering a new guidebook to 20 different federal programs that can be tapped by developers and offers technical assistance in what can end up being tricky and expensive conversions.
A third peg of the program will see the federal government draw up a public list of buildings it owns that could be made available for sale to help bolster development.
It won’t take 20 to 25 years for landlords to find other uses for their buildings. That’s a lot of wasted profit, which is why they’re pressuring the government to give them handouts to do it now.
I’m fine with tax dollars going to cheap housing. I’m not fine with landlords maximizing profit off of the rent charged to tenants when tax dollars were used to renovate the building.
I think a fair alternative would be to have a significant tax on any profits these buildings make as a result of government handouts. There should also be rent caps so they don’t just charge ‘what the market will bear,’ which is maximizing profit off of government handouts and people who can’t afford real estate.
This is a good balance between landlords maintaining their egregious paydays and paying back the government handouts they rely on.