Detroit Housing Revitalization Program Serves as Example for Biden's Plan

A neighborhood revitalization program in Detroit now serves as an example for a proposed housing initiative. In Detroit, many homes in need of repairs remain vacant because renovation costs would exceed the potential selling price. Rehabbed and Ready seeks to end urban decay and low property values by conducting the renovations. It has completed 90 projects since 2015 and plans for 200 more. Biden’s proposed infrastructure plan has the same goals. Part of the plan would offer $20 billion in tax credits to developers who would renovate properties, hoping to ease the single-family housing shortage.

Rehabbed and Ready is a rough model for a Biden administration proposal to renovate 500,000 dwellings in a decade by offering $20 billion in tax credits to developers. The plan, aimed at easing the nationwide shortage of affordable single-family homes, is part of President Biden’s broader $1.7 trillion infrastructure proposal.

“It’s a similar approach to a problem that is particularly acute in Detroit but you can actually see it in almost every geography,” said Julia Gordon, an advocate of the Biden plan who is president of the National Community Stabilization Trust, a nonprofit that focuses on neighborhood revitalization.

Much of the Biden administration’s agenda—from two years of tuition-free community college to subsidized day care—faces opposition from Republicans in Congress. But the tax-credit initiative has broad bipartisan support. It started as a stand-alone bill now backed by five Republicans and five Democrats in the Senate, and 11 Democratic and six Republican co-sponsors in the House.

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