Andy Harris

Rep. Andy Harris is half right. At least, he is about housing. As Harris’ recent opinion piece in The Baltimore Sun makes clear, this nation is in a housing crisis. The American dream of homeownership has slipped out of reach for too many. Marylanders cannot afford to live near where they work. And, most critically, we’re lacking adequate housing supply at all income levels.

But he mistakes the response to this crisis for the cause. Federal housing programs did not create years of underbuilding, local land-use restrictions or regulatory barriers. They are attempts to cushion the far-reaching consequences of those failures. And they make the difference between being homeless or housed when families are priced out in markets warped by shortages and exclusionary policies.

When Harris asks if “existing programs are delivering results,” we have to first examine the condition of those programs against their intent. Across the nation, just one in four very low-income households receives a housing subsidy, but the majority of housing voucher waitlists are closed. When the program is only serving a quarter of the Americans it should, we can’t blame vouchers for failing to provide widespread housing stability — it’s the lack of vouchers. That’s common sense.

The same goes for the Community Development Block Grant program and the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, the creation of which Harris links to rising housing unaffordability. Federal funding for both of these programs, which have funded thousands of affordable homes in Maryland, has plummeted since 2000, decreasing 64% and 65%, respectively, adjusted for inflation and population growth.

A housing crisis should be treated like one. If a neighborhood is on fire, do we send a single fire truck with a leaky hose and a skeleton crew and ask why it’s still burning? Or, do we deploy enough resources to fully extinguish it?

Harris believes that more federal funding to housing creates “more bureaucracy.” Ultimately, Americans don’t care whether the apartment they can finally afford exists because of a new federal program or a new funding stream. They care that it exists.

But what is Harris right about? He’s onto the real problem: the red tape and burdensome government processes that add up to effectively kill housing creation across this country. This is the true bureaucracy standing in the way of housing that families can afford — not federal programs or subsidies helping those very families stay housed. Permitting delays, burdensome regulatory processes and excessive fees levied by government all create the ideal conditions for stagnant housing production.

In Maryland, we’re tackling these problems at the state level.

Recent actions such as Gov. Wes Moore’s Housing Starts Here executive order, the bipartisan Housing Certainty Act and the bipartisan Transit and Housing Opportunity Act reflect the state’s commitment to increasing the availability and affordability of housing for working Maryland families. We’ve legalized modular homes in all single-family-zoned areas, lowered the cost and uncertainty of building housing, reduced state permitting timelines and cut red tape that gets in the way of housing production.

Despite criticizing Maryland’s regulatory hurdles, Harris enthusiastically supported staffing cuts at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that have significantly delayed deployment of nearly $7 million in Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing grant funding that was awarded to the state of Maryland to remove those hurdles. The grant funds, when received, will allow Maryland to conduct a statewide analysis of barriers to housing, support local zoning reforms and revamp permitting processes — accomplishing the very goals that Harris agrees are necessary.

The bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act will build on our momentum. The supply-focused bill includes numerous provisions aimed at incentivizing state and local governments to take action to cut red tape, including updating regulatory processes, increasing capacity to conduct inspections, streamlining environmental reviews and coordinating housing development with transportation planning.

We’re grateful to our partners in Congress who voted overwhelmingly in favor of this bipartisan bill to meet the needs of the American people, including Sen. Angela Alsobrooks — who sits on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee — and the rest of the Maryland congressional delegation who, with the exception of Harris, supported the legislation.

We cannot and will not stop here. Harris and I agree: America needs more homes. How we get there lies in how all levels of government reform these processes, and how aggressively — not by quibbling over the number of housing programs that exist to support American families and communities.

Jake Day is secretary of the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development and former mayor of Salisbury.