21st Century ROAD to Housing Act

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (ROAD Act) became law on July 11, 2026, after President Trump took no action within the constitutional review period. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sent the bill to the President on June 29; because it was neither signed nor vetoed within ten days, excluding Sundays, it became law without the President's signature.

The bipartisan package combines numerous housing and community development bills, including long-pending HOME program reforms developed with NCDA input through a HOME Coalition working group.

The effort began with Senator Tim Scott's (R-SC) 2023 discussion draft and gained momentum in 2025 when Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined Scott to advance a bipartisan version through the Senate Banking Committee. After the bill was left out of the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act, the House Financial Services Committee advanced a similar measure, and the chambers reconciled their versions before final passage by votes of 85-5 in the Senate and 358-32 in the House this year.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act makes significant changes to federal community development and affordable housing programs by expanding eligible uses of CDBG and HOME funds, reducing administrative barriers, and creating new opportunities to support affordable housing supply. The Act also directs HUD to advance reforms related to zoning, land use, and environmental review, with the overall goal of helping communities increase housing production and improve access to affordable housing.

For the CDBG program, the Act requires communities to establish publicly available databases of undeveloped public land beginning with FY27 grants and allows grantees to use up to 20% of their annual allocations for new affordable housing construction that meets HOME affordability standards. Beginning with FY30 grants, CDBG entitlement allocations may also be affected by local housing growth performance under the Build Now Act, creating a potential funding risk for grantees whose housing production falls below national benchmarks.

The HOME program reforms are among the Act's most substantial changes. They expand flexibility for homeownership assistance, raise purchase price and income limits, streamline certain Section 3 and environmental review requirements, eliminate the 24-month commitment deadline, allow more flexible use of unspent CHDO set-aside funds, and provide limited repayment waiver authority when circumstances beyond a grantee's or property owner's control make a project financially unviable.

The Act also affects Emergency Solutions Grants by allowing state and local recipients to request waivers of the 60% cap on emergency shelter and street outreach expenditures from 2027 through 2030. In addition, it creates several competitive grant programs focused on affordable housing supply, planning and implementation, home repair, and adaptive reuse of vacant or abandoned properties. Most of these programs will depend on future congressional appropriations before funding becomes available.

Because many provisions require HUD guidance before implementation, grantees should monitor forthcoming notices and interim guidance closely. Until HUD issues formal direction, grantees should avoid revising program documents or making implementation changes.

NCDA's overview of the bill provides additional information on key community development and affordable housing provisions, implementation considerations, and takeaways for grantees.