TRANSCRIPT: Delivering Keynote Address During Affordability Summit At The Center For American Progress, Leader Schumer Unveils A Plan To Address The Housing Affordability Crisis

Washington, D.C. - Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) today spoke at the Center for American Progress to announce his "Opportunity Starts at Home" agenda, a comprehensive plan full of proposals from Senate Democrats to combat the housing affordability crisis. In his speech, Leader Schumer detailed Democrats' proposals to lower rents, expand homeownership, increase housing supply to lower costs, and protect homeowners and renters from predatory corporate practices, while pushing back on Trump's disastrous policies that are exacerbating the housing affordability crisis. Below are Senator Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

We meet right now at a moment of crisis for the American spirit. Across the country tens of millions of families, people living paycheck to paycheck, people clinging onto the middle class are asking them the same question from one end of the country to the other. Is America still a land of opportunity? Does the promise of this country still deliver for me and my family? And for too many Americans the answer has become no. And the reason is the cost of living is far too high and under Donald Trump this crisis has gone from bad to worse.

Trump's tariffs have raised costs for automobiles, clothing, furniture, even coffee and groceries. His Secretary of Agriculture says just spend less. It can cost around $3 the Secretary said for a meal, for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla and one other thing. These people are not serious they almost sound like they never had to feed a family. They never had to go to a supermarket. It's just incredible.

Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" meanwhile raised health care costs, booted millions off insurance and on January 1st we saw tens of millions of Americans - saw their premiums double on average because Donald Trump and Republicans let the ACA premium tax credits expire despite all of our efforts. I'm sure last night there were tens of millions of American families sitting at the dinner table saying, "how are we going to pay these bills?" "Do I pay my whole health care bill and stop saving for my retirement?" "Do I buy the new car or cut back on groceries?" These are the kinds of questions that vex average families more than just about anything else. If you can't provide a decent life for yourself and your family you don't think things are very good.

So, this is just a crisis that has just become unmanageable for too many families. Working Americans are anxious, they're worried sick and then they're left wondering who the hell is fighting for me with all of these problems? Well as we begin 2026, Senate Democrats have a message for the country: We hear you. We hear you loud and clear and we're getting to work every day, every week, every month this year Democrats will put costs front and center in our agenda. It will be our agenda now and on throughout 2026.

This spring and over the next few months and through 2026 Democrats will show precisely how a Senate Democratic majority will lower costs for everyday expenses. They'll go issue by issue spending weeks at a time, deliberately in depth, rolling out a battle plan for each front of the war of high costs no matter where you live in America, no matter where you live. If you're Republican, Democrat, Independent or not political at all, you should know we are hearing you.

In a few weeks we'll present a plan to the American people for how to lower their grocery costs. A few weeks later we'll unveil a vision on how to lower electricity and energy costs. We'll present a plan that will help parents afford childcare and help families afford health care. Lowering costs will be our North Star now and for all of 2026 and when Senate Democrats win the majority, the first thing we're going to do is get to work to enact these policies to lower the cost of living.

Today we begin this effort by focusing on housing no matter where you live in America. No matter if you're Republican, Democrat, or an Independent. Everyone worries about cost but then everyone worries about housing affordability. Owning a home means building wealth, building a future. It's one of the most important parts of the American dream, if not the most important. Young families when they own a home and pay that mortgage each month, they know they're building equity, they're building a future they have something they can leave for their children.

But as we all know over the last few decades the American dream of owning a home has become more of a mirage. It was a very realizable dream years ago and most people even at the lower income levels thought I can afford a home. They don't think so anymore and that's devastating to them. The median price of a home - Neera [Tanden] pointed out some of these out in her good intro - has increased by 55% since COVID. Rent is up by a third and as Neera mentioned, I think of this all the time the average first time home buyer is forty years old. Forty years old before you can buy a home. That's a record high. That's a devastating statistic that should shake up everyone in a position of power at the federal, state, or local levels.

This statistic is just so confounding and deeply troubling and when the rent or the mortgage is too high you can't afford much else it squeezes every other aspect of your life. If you can reduce the cost of your housing, then on the converse you have room to afford many things you need daily and right now America is short millions of housing units, driving up costs everywhere.

Now, this crisis did not happen overnight. It wasn't always this way. Nearly a century ago, FDR instituted the nation's first ever laws to help Americans afford housing and he declared - FDR -"the right of every family is to a decent home." The GI Bill after World War two made low-interest loans available to millions and millions of American veterans. The Great Society saw the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Section 8 vouchers brought rental assistance to millions of low-income families. Fair housing laws insured affordable housing while fighting discrimination.

The history is clear my friends, when the federal government leads on housing policy, Americans are better off. But we know this began to change in the 1980s. The Reagan administration shifted this focus from serving hard-working Americans to helping business interests increase their bottom lines. The federal government's ambitious housing policy ossified and shrunk.

Now, I want to be very clear that both parties ignored a decades long housing crisis a truth we Democrats must confront and own. But, under Donald Trump our housing crisis and the affordability crisis in general has reached a boiling point. Trump tried to cut tens of billions of dollars to help people with rental assistance, help prevent homelessness, help enforce fair housing, help build affordable housing. He just cut and cut and cut with my view little even thought as to the consequences. His tariffs have raised housing construction costs - as Neera mentioned - by $17,500 a home. $17,500 increased in the cost of your home because of Donald Trump's tariffs and now he's launching a criminal investigation against the chair of the Federal Reserve. A brazen attempt to cannibalize the Fed's independence. The decision will cause chaos in the housing markets and that increases costs because when there's chaos and politicization at the Fed, interest rates are more likely to go higher and stay high. The lenders hold on tight and they say we better not take any risks we better pay our balance sheets with higher costs because we don't know what's going to come next. Then, he's launching a criminal investigation, Trump is, against the chair of the Federal Reserve, a brazen attempt to cannibalize the Fed's independence.

This decision could cause chaos in the housing markets as well and he's kneecap the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well. That protects against predatory corporate behavior and targets renters and homebuyers. He's made this absurd proposal of a 50-year mortgage which is just inane and unserious. The minute he came out with - it just sort of popped into his head as lots of very bad things do but unlike many other people there's no filter and out it comes with deadly consequences in many cases - but anyway it was ridiculed immediately by the left, by the right, by the center.

Here's another one that just kills me, they've been trying this for years but he's giving it a renewed push the privatization of Fannie and Freddie. It's so obvious that will raise costs for working families if you privatize Fannie and Freddie but they're proposing it. Ironically, the only decent idea Donald Trump has floated recently on housing is one he stole from Democrats calling for an end to institutional investors gobbling up homes and crowding out individual families. Democrats think we should pursue this idea and in fact we tried to get it done last year. We had an amendment to the reconciliation bill, which we all voted for, they all voted against, and this is Donald Trump's Achilles heel even when he tries to do something good he tries to sound like a populist. But, in reality he's a posturer. He never does anything to follow through. [Ideas] pop out of his mouth one day and then he's on something else the next day. Trump if you care about preventing these institutional inventors from gobbling up homes get the Republican senators and the Republican House members to join us in voting for it don't just posture. He thinks when he throws out these populist sounding things he can persuade people he's on their side but he never lifts a finger or picks up a phone to get the Republicans to Congress to act.

Here's a case in point: a recent one House Republicans blocked progress on real and necessary housing legislation namely the ROAD to Housing Act which Elizabeth Warren's worked so hard on and includes so many good bills that ten Senate Democrats have fought for over the years, but even though it passed bipartisan in the House, in the Senate, Donald Trump didn't lift a finger to stop House Republicans from axing ROAD to Housing.

Well, the American people have had enough. What the American people want isn't rocket science. They simply want lower costs, an ability to live, a decent life, and to feel positively about the future. The American people simply put want opportunity and Democrats believe that when it comes to creating opportunity, opportunity must start at home. So that's why I'm calling our housing agenda "Opportunity Starts at Home." When Donald Trump spends billions in taxpayer dollars on foreign wars, Democrats will focus on investing here at home and lower costs for the American people here at home. And what does that mean practically when it comes to housing? A Democratic majority will tackle the housing affordability crisis by working to do these things to reduce rent, to boost home ownership, to stop predatory corporations, to supercharge construction, and to provide housing security for all Americans. This is how we create opportunity. This is how we'll lower housing costs for the American people.

So, let me go a little bit through each. First - rental relief. The Democratic majority will fight to deliver real robust rental relief for every tenant in need because when it comes to lowering costs rental relief is one of the best short-term fixes on the table. Republicans aren't even talking about rental relief at all but we Democrats actually delivered on rental relief in the past this - and Neera mentioned - when I was Majority Leader, in the depths of the COVID crisis, Democrats entered into the law robust expansion for rental assistance and emergency housing vouchers. We saved millions of eviction. We gave people the space and means to find their footing and there's still that crisis going on, not all at once because of COVID, but every day, in every part of America, the same types of relief are needed. Democrats have also fought long and hard to expand Section 8 vouchers to reduce rental costs and will focus on expanding necessary rental relief to even more Americans who need help with the crushing cost of rent.

Second - boosting homeownership. Democrats will expand the promise of homeownership for every American looking to buy a home; will help with the down payment assistance critical for the first time in first generation buyers; will lower the cost of mortgage insurance - I don't know why that hasn't been done, so essential in these days when down payment costs so much; will expand access to portable and assumable mortgages, as well they should be portable they should be assumable much more easily than now; will reform homeowners' insurance, which is now at a crisis level and so important for people who can't afford that down payment, and that's especially true on our coasts and in communities prone to wildfires. Homeowners insurance is vital and the cost is going through the roof so that people can't sell their homes, people can't buy their homes, it's so important to reform. Now, these are just some of the ideas on the table that the Democratic majority will push to make homeownership easier, less expensive, more sustainable.

Third - predatory companies. Democrats will hit back at predatory institutions that are guilty of raising prices, abusing tenants, shutting millions of working and middle-class families out of the housing market. Even though some of our Republicans don't get it, corporations are not people and they shouldn't be allowed to gobble up entire neighborhoods so easily and turn them into profit machines. The Democratic majority would work to put a stop to this poisonous trend, as I said even Donald Trump says he likes this idea. Too bad he'll never get it done. Republicans in the House and Senate will not do it. We have to get the majority to do these things. Democrats will also crack down on companies that artificially raise prices by using price fixing algorithms to help landlords collude with each other and figure out how they can squeeze the maximum rent out of each individual in each individual case, it's using technology for a very bad purpose. And one of my favorites, which I've delivered on for years, I used to do Sunday press conferences on this it's one of my favorite policies, it's ending junk fees. In this case, rental junk fees that prey upon families already struggling to keep up with the rent.

Fourth - build more housing. We have to build more housing, plain and simple, no ifs, ands, or buts. A Democratic majority will launch a nationwide mission to build housing to reduce costs in every state, every community, every neighborhood in need. We'll work with anyone - Democrats; Republicans; federal, state, local leaders; labor leaders; developers; faith leaders; anyone - to get it done. And a good start again is for the Republican House to pass the ROAD to Housing Act. The Senate's done its job due to the leadership of Elizabeth Warren and now the House and Donald Trump must do theirs and get the ROAD to Housing over the finish line. But we have to do more. Elizabeth and everyone else says that's just the first step. There's a lot more that must be done. We must cut unnecessary tape, red tape, and encourage local zoning reform by providing incentives and disincentives, carrots and sticks for localities to reform outdated rules to wipe away rules that get in the way of building housing. Senator Schatz has been a great leader on this and we'll have more to say about it. We have so many talented people in our caucus. And my job is to take those ideas and blend them and weave them into one strong program that we can all support and Schatz has been great on this issue. We'll also expand the Housing Trust Fund and create a new middle class housing emergency fund to invest in public housing. Senators Warren and Warnock are working on this already and will work to get Fannie and Freddie to provide a national secondary market for construction loans to finance multifamily housing making construction loans cheaper makes housing more available and more affordable to many. I also have legislation I'm working on with Senator Duckworth to empower HUD to invoke the DPA, the Defense Production Act, guaranteeing the purchase of housing materials in short supply and scaling production of modular and manufactured housing. This is something Senator Slotkin has also called for. But again, the DPA, when there was a national emergency, war, we use the DPA. We have a national emergency and housing use the same thing the same basic policy too. We also want to create a new DARPA home program which will provide new thinking and new innovation to bring housing costs down. DARPA did it for defense we can do it for housing with a housing DARPA so this is just one of the many pieces of legislation we've worked on and we benefited from CAP's knowledge and insight because they helped create these ideas. Separately we're also going to work to expand something that's been something I've long championed even when I was in the House and that is the low-income housing tax credit. Maria Cantwell's done great work on this as well and we know this works.

So now, as we talk about increasing construction, every single one of us must be clear about something else - it's important Democrats will reject the false choice between building more housing and paying our construction workers a decent wage. We will not abandon our organized labor like Donald Trump. We will empower them by ensuring they receive good pay, safety on the job, and with legislation to train a new generation of trades workers to build America including housing, finally, housing security for all. We must ensure financial security and opportunity for all communities, that means we need some targeted investments to end homelessness, to provide quality housing for veterans, and for seniors to rebuild communities that have been left behind, and we will enforce fair housing laws to deliver fair and affordable housing to all Americans.

Now these are just some of the things that Democrats will push to lower housing costs for the American people. As you can see, we've thought this through. We have a broad and comprehensive program that can really work so this is what our "Opportunity Starts At Home" Agenda looks like. As I mentioned before, because I'm so passionate about this, in the weeks and months to come you'll hear from Senate Democrats on our plan to lower other costs as well: food costs, energy costs, the cost of groceries, health care, childcare, and so many other things that Americans pay for every day.

The point is this folks, Republicans had their chance to show Americans they're serious about solving the housing crisis and they have failed. They have failed.

So, we Democrats will offer what the American people desperately need - a way forward. That's what our "Opportunity Starts At Home" Agenda does, it shows the way forward to revive our nation's housing policy. The dream of owning a home might seem like a mirage now, but there's no good reason it cannot turn into a new oasis of future prosperity.

Democrats are ready to get to work. We want to deliver on the vision of the right of every family to a decent home. We have the right ideas. We have the right proposals. And once we get the majority, we can start bringing these ideas to life.

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