Bill Makes Strides Toward Sustainable Homeownership 

July 29, 2025 — Press Release

NCLC advocates urge further progress and support for struggling homeowners

WASHINGTON –Today, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs took steps to advance affordable homeownership by voting out a bipartisan legislative package for full consideration by the Senate. The ROAD to Housing Act of 2025 includes provisions that will help make homeownership more sustainable. In particular, the bill makes permanent a key assistance program for families recovering from natural disasters. The bill also will enable households to more easily access and sustain homeownership, including Black and Latino households and low-income and rural families. 

“This bill offers tangible progress in making homeownership more attainable, more affordable, and more equitable, and in delivering a permanent long-term disaster relief program” said Alys Cohen, Director of Federal Housing Advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center. “While we are encouraged by the advances, we urge Congress to ensure the new programs are implemented with transparency and equity and that further progress can be made to ensure fair housing and to protect the rights of tenants, especially in public housing.” 

The legislation includes several provisions to support homeownership and to promote disaster recovery. More progress is essential: homeownership is out of reach for many, the racial homeownership gap for Black and Latino communities as compared to white communities remains vast, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency has just announced its plans to repeal in whole its recently adopted rules on fair lending and fair housing. 

“We look forward to having the bill considered by the full Senate, but much work still needs to be done to make housing available, affordable, and non-discriminatory, so we can see a nation where all people can count on housing stability and equity,” Cohen said.

The bill:

• Permanently authorizes the federal program that supports long-term recovery for survivors of natural disasters, the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program. CDBG-DR provides states, tribes, and communities with flexible recovery resources needed to rebuild affordable housing and infrastructure. The bill includes key safeguards to help ensure that federal disaster support reaches all impacted households, including the lowest-income and most marginalized survivors who are often hardest-hit by disasters and have the fewest resources to recover;
• Adopts the Appraisal Modernization Act, which requires lenders to allow homebuyers and homeowners to request a reconsideration of the home’s valuation, obligates the lender to pay for any additional appraisal needed, and mandates a federal feasibility study for the establishment of a publicly available, searchable appraisal database; 
• Allows rural, low-income homeowners with USDA Direct Loan mortgages to obtain lower payments when they face an economic hardship by permitting the agency to provide for loan term extensions, a routine tool in hardship assistance currently unavailable to these borrowers; 
• Shines a light on the limited access to small dollar mortgage lending in underserved communities by requiring federal agencies to examine lending practices, including compensation and loan fees, as well as other factors, that may contribute to the dearth of small dollar mortgages; and
• Provides support for distressed homeowners with FHA, USDA, and VA loans to work with housing counselors.

Related Resources

• Press Release: Presidential Action Enables Discrimination in Housing and Lending, April, 25, 2025
• Press Release: HUD Takes Aim at Discriminatory Practices by Tenant Screening Companies and Housing Providers, May 2, 2024