Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders Unveil ‘Green New Deal’ for Public Housing

Progressives are reviving the Green New Deal moniker as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), and others announced a Green New Deal for Public Housing Act to revamp and revitalize the country’s public housing.

The legislation intends to “retrofit, rehabilitate, expand, and decarbonize the entire nation’s public housing stock” by spending an estimated $162 billion to $234 billion over 10 years in an attempt to both address America’s housing crisis and concerns over long-term climate impacts.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said the bill would confront the country’s “insane housing market” while speaking in the House Triangle at Capitol Hill on March 21.

“Every single one of us—most of us—are contending with the fact that we can barely afford housing, whether it’s high rents, whether it’s mortgages, whether it’s inaccessibility to public housing, and social housing stock, as well. We cannot access it,” she said.

The lawmakers argued the importance of tackling the “systemic and existential crises facing us today” including climate impacts and the growing number of Americans who struggle to afford housing or are forced to trade meals for rent payments.

“It is unacceptable that, on a single given night in America, over 650,000 people are homeless. It is unacceptable that, in the richest country in the history of the world, people are choosing between paying rent and putting food on the table,” Mr. Sanders said in a news release.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said 57 percent of public housing residents are also elderly or disabled.

“Our seniors matter, our elders matter, our disabled brothers and sisters matter,” she said.

“And we are sick and tired of having them priced out of our communities and treated as disposable parts of society. They are the most essential parts of our society.”

There will also be $1 billion in funding for the program’s administrative costs, including technical assistance to grant applicants, her office told The Epoch Times.

Previous Attempt at Green New Deal

This legislation is the latest version of an earlier plan that was unveiled in April 2021 by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Sanders.

The latest bill would go further by repealing the Faircloth Amendment. It was enacted in 1999 and has effectively limited funding for new public housing from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The current iteration would also allocate even more funding for the backlog in public housing and for “clean-energy” improvements.

Central to the bill is an effort to strengthen public housing communities, elevate living conditions, and generate 280,000 jobs by transitioning the United States’ entire public housing stock to “clean energy.”

To do so, it would create two federal grant programs to take the nation’s roughly 970,000 public housing units and change them into “zero-carbon, highly energy-efficient developments that produce on-site renewable energy.”

Further grants would be provided for new jobs that “expand workforce capacity and family self-sufficiency programs, and focus on community development.”

Some of that work would involve weatherizing, electrifying, and modernizing the nation’s public housing to make it “serve as a model of efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency” but also to bring it up to a “safe and sanitary condition.”

Lawmakers said the bill would also expand existing federal programs to put residents to work in helping upgrade existing public housing to safe standards, and then with efforts to make those units “carbon-free.”

Many public housing units throughout the country suffer from poor water access, aging heating and cooling systems that contribute to poor air quality, and outdated appliances, and are also often in need of critical building repairs that get indefinitely delayed due to a lack of funds.

Lawmakers hope the legislation confronts some of those needs while also potentially saving federal money in the long term through energy cost reductions once units have been retrofitted for energy efficiency.

“What we have got to do now in the midst of a massive housing crisis—in the state of Vermont, in New York, in California—not only homelessness, but millions of people are paying 50 percent or more of their limited income from housing. We are saying enough is enough; affordable housing is a human right,” Mr. Sanders said at the March 21 news conference.

Day Before Government Funding Race

However, the announcement comes on the eve of another looming government funding deadline. On March 22, Congress must race against the clock to fund the government before a shutdown occurs at 11:59 p.m.

Due to the current volatility in government funding discussions between both political parties, the public housing bill’s fate is unknown. Republicans hold a 219–213 majority in the House but have less room for defectors after December 2023 saw both the expulsion of former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) and the retirement of former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) later resigned in January, bringing the GOP count to 219, but the party’s numbers will decrease again when Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) officially resigns after March 22, leaving the party with only 218 members.

Democrats are also trying to retain their 51–49 majority in the Senate. However, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who caucuses with Democrats, announced in February she is not seeking reelection in 2024.

If Ms. Sinema had sought reelection, it would have created a three-person race between her, former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).

Mr. Gallego is ahead of Ms. Lake by 1 point in the latest poll from FiveThirtyEight but was behind her by 4 points prior to Ms. Sinema’s retirement announcement.

Some analysts have speculated that a three-person race would have made a win for Ms. Lake much easier than going head-to-head with Mr. Gallego.