Home Building Professionals Call on Congress to Address Housing Issues

On Wednesday, more than 700 home builders, remodelers, and other building professionals marched on Capitol Hill to encourage Congress to take steps to ease the worsening U.S. housing affordability crisis and make housing a national priority. The nation is short 1.5 million housing units, and apart from resolving a supply-demand imbalance, increased residential construction could also help to tame inflation in the U.S. economy.

Housing advocates held more than 250 individual meetings with their representatives and senators, urging lawmakers to act on the shortage of transformers and other electrical switch gear, the adoption of updated energy codes, and the need for workforce development funding, the National Association of Home Builders reports.

“From coast to coast, members of the housing community have come to Washington for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) 2023 Legislative Conference to deliver a simple message to lawmakers: ‘As housing goes, so goes the economy,’” said NAHB Chairman Alicia Huey, a custom home builder and developer from Birmingham, Ala.

With a nationwide shortage of 1.5 million housing units, Huey noted that “building more homes is the only way to tame inflation, satisfy unmet demand, achieve a healthy supply-demand balance in the for-sale and rental markets, and ease the nation’s housing affordability crisis.”

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