San Jose lawmaker pushes housing bills in Congress - San Jose Spotlight

"The former San Jose mayor turned Congressional District 16 representative has introduced nine bills since taking office in the 119th Congress this year. They range from proposals to protect Medicaid from sweeping federal spending cuts, barring national lawmakers from promoting cryptocurrency that benefits them and restricting President Donald Trump's National Guard deployments. He's also co-sponsored 33 other bills from his colleagues."

""This is one of those areas where we can find some common ground with Republicans," Liccardo told San José Spotlight. He's introduced three bills on housing so far, with a fourth expected in the next couple of weeks. One is the Supply Act, which would essentially boost production of backyard homes through mortgages. Another is the Unlock Act, which Liccardo says will make Community Development Block Grants more flexible for cities and counties to use to construct affordable housing."

"The third is the BUILD Housing Act, which similarly aims to help accelerate housing construction with other federal fund sources like HOME grants, which provide funding to state and local governments to for low-income housing. All three bills are in committee. "None of those are home runs that will solve the housing crisis (alone)," Liccardo said. "But the good news is that we have Republican cosponsors for each one of those,"

Sam Liccardo introduced nine bills in the 119th Congress and co-sponsored 33 others. Proposals include protecting Medicaid from federal spending cuts, barring lawmakers from promoting self-beneficial cryptocurrency, and restricting presidential National Guard deployments. A narrow Republican House majority increases the need for bipartisan support. Housing has attracted cross-party backing. Liccardo introduced the Supply Act to boost backyard-home production via mortgages; the Unlock Act to increase flexibility of Community Development Block Grants for affordable housing; and the BUILD Housing Act to accelerate construction using federal funds like HOME grants. All three bills are in committee and a fourth housing bill is expected soon.

Read at San Jose Spotlight