Get Ready for the ROAD to Housing Act: Steps to Take Before Accessing New Housing Funds
July 13, 2026
Topic(s): Community Revitalization, Federal Policy
After years of discussion, multiple congressional sessions, competing proposals, committee negotiations, and numerous revisions, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (H.R. 1299) became law on July 11, 2026 representing one of the most significant federal housing packages in decades.
The law focuses on increasing housing supply, building homeownership opportunities, preserving existing housing, and advancing community development—with crucial elements for communities experiencing widespread property vacancy, abandonment, and deterioration.
But first, an important caveat. Many programs the legislation creates are pilots with very limited funding. They—and other portions of the law—will rely on future appropriations to become reality. The reality is that competition for these funds will be high, and demand will far exceed available resources. Communities working to address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties will need to be prepared and strategic to take advantage of this opportunity.
Community Progress will continue tracking implementation of the ROAD to Housing Act throughout 2026. As the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) releases guidance, funding opportunities, and implementation resources, we’ll provide updates and analysis to help communities best position themselves to compete successfully for new federal investments. Bookmark our Federal Policy Dashboard to stay on top of other bills relevant to community development and revitalization.
Overview of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act contains many provisions aimed at improving housing supply and affordability. Below, we focus on only specific elements of the act that give communities additional tools to prevent and address property vacancy and deterioration.
Provisions that address property deterioration and keep families in safe, stable homes
Resources for low- and moderate-income families to remain in their homes through home repair programs, increasing access to loans, and stabilizing manufactured home communities.
💲 Section changes financial resources a community can access, or how they can be used (actual dollars may depend on appropriation)
⚙️ Section changes how government works, plans, regulates, or administers housing programs, without meaningfully expanding financial resources
| Section | Provision |
|---|---|
| 202 💲 | Whole Home Repairs Pilot: Authorizes a competitive program through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide grants and loans to homeowners and small landlords to help with home repairs. It supports low-income homeowners in addressing health, safety, and accessibility issues in their homes. |
| 303 💲 | FHA Title I Modernization: Increases cap on FHA Title I property improvement loans to $75,000 for repairs to single-family homes, including manufactured homes. It also increases manufactured housing loan limits and adds accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as an eligible use, making it easier for owners to build in-law or rental units at home. |
| Other Provisions | |
| 304 💲 | Manufactured Home Preservation: Reauthorizes the PRICE Act for seven years, which helps aging manufactured home communities pay for critical repairs, as well as replace homes, improve infrastructure, support, and support long-term affordability. |
| 504 ⚙️ | CDBG-DR Reforms: Creates a standing framework for the HUD CDBG-Disaster Recovery program, replacing the previous ad hoc approach where Congress had to recreate the program after each major disaster. It strengthens support for low- and moderate-households and gives communities a more predictable process to address disaster-related repair needs, vacancy, and long-term recovery. The framework sunsets after three years unless reauthorized. |
What communities should do now:
- Locate at-risk homes: Use local data (e.g., code violations, tax delinquency, utility shut-off notices, environmental hazards) to identify which properties are at risk of deterioration.
- Identify repair partners: Map out your potential implementing partners, such as community action agencies, faith-based repair networks, HUD 203(k) lenders, weatherization service providers, and others.
- Create service pathways: Develop a clear referral system that helps code enforcement departments connect property owners with repair providers.
Provisions that transform vacant properties into housing opportunities
Funding and pilot programs that turn underutilized land and vacant properties into affordable homes.
💲 Section changes financial resources a community can access, or how they can be used (actual dollars may depend on appropriation)
⚙️ Section changes how government works, plans, regulates, or administers housing programs, without meaningfully expanding financial resources
| Section | Provision |
|---|---|
| 104 ⚙️ | Public Land Inventory: Requires Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) grantees to publish an online, searchable inventory of all undeveloped land it owns. This is intended to help communities and developers identify and prioritize reuse of public land suitable for housing. |
| 204 ⚙️ | CDBG Affordable Housing Construction: Adds new construction of affordable housing as an eligible CDBG activity, capped at 20% of a recipient’s allocation. This gives communities a new way to use future CDBG funds for infill and affordable housing development. |
| 210 💲 | RESIDE: This 5-year pilot program provides $1 million-$10 million awards to convert vacant commercial or industrial buildings into attainable housing. It prioritizes economically distressed areas and Opportunity Zones and can serve up to 120% area median income (AMI) if the majority of units are at 60% AMI or below. |
| 501 ⚙️ | HOME After-Rehab Value Cap: Raises the maximum after-rehab value for HOME-assisted homeownership projects from 95% to 110% of the area median home price, and expands HOME homeownership assistance to households up to 100% of AMI, up from 80%. |
| Other Provisions | |
| 201 ⚙️ | Opportunity Zone Priority: Allows HUD to give housing projects located in designated Opportunity Zones more weight when awarding grants. |
What communities should do now:
- Inventory your vacant property: Start building or updating your vacant property database. Use all available data local and national data—USPS vacancy data, city tax/utility records, HUD data, and community surveys—to comprehensively map out all potential parcels that may be eligible for these programs.
- Prioritize inventory: Rank properties by community priorities (which may include location, redevelopment potential, or condition). Engage land banks, redevelopment agencies, or conservation corps to leverage their tools and acquire or prepare sites as needed.
- Identify opportunity zones: Governors will be designating new opportunity zones by the end of 2026. Engage with your governor’s office to ensure they prioritize areas that need revitalization most.
Provisions to build stronger local housing systems
Improvements to community planning, regulatory, and development processes. It funds planning and rewards innovative approaches to increasing housing supply.
💲 Section changes financial resources a community can access, or how they can be used (actual dollars may depend on appropriation)
⚙️ Section changes how government works, plans, regulates, or administers housing programs, without meaningfully expanding financial resources
| Section | Provision |
|---|---|
| 105 💲 | FHA Small-Dollar Mortgages Pilot: Authorizes a 4-year HUD pilot to expand FHA mortgage lending for loans $100,000 or less for 1-4-unit homes, using tools like incentives for lenders, borrower grants for transaction costs, and technical assistance. This is a useful tool for weaker markets where modest homes may be affordable but hard to finance because the mortgage is too small for many lenders. |
| 207 💲 | Affordable Housing Planning Grants: Establishes a HUD program to support housing and land-use planning. Communities may use the grants to update zoning codes, streamline permitting, improve inspection capacity, integrate housing and transit planning, or implement other supply-building policies. This goal is to help jurisdictions “get ready” to build more homes. |
| 208 💲 | Innovation Fund: Authorizes a $200 million annual HUD competitive grant program that supports local governments and Tribes that adopt reforms designed to increase housing supply and reduce barriers to development. Reforms may include faster permitting, density bonuses, mixed-use zoning, and other impact-driven policies. |
| 209 💲 | Accelerating Home Building: Provides grants to help governments adopt preapproved housing designs to speed up construction of mixed-income housing (such as ADUs, duplexes, townhomes). The grants cover planning and outreach needed to incorporate these designs into ordinances. Importantly, 10% of funds are set aside for rural areas. Communities that adopt a design have five years to build with it. |
| Other Provisions | |
| 107 ⚙️ | Housing Supply Frameworks: HUD will publish best-practice guidelines (“frameworks”) to help local governments modernize zoning and land-use codes in service of building more housing. Of note, communities are explicitly encouraged to consider land banks as key partners. |
| 205/206 ⚙️ | Environmental Review Modernization: Two sections (the BUILD Housing Act and the NEPA Streamlining Act) are intended to speed up housing projects. HUD will streamline environmental review for certain housing activities, including by treating some rehabilitation, infill, adaptive reuse, and small scattered-site projects as exempt or categorically excluded from National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review, and by allowing more reviews to be handled by states, Tribes, and local governments. |
| 501 ⚙️ | Additional HOME Program Reforms: Reauthorizes HOME and strengthens pathways for shared-equity ownership, community land trusts, limited-equity cooperatives, and community development corporations to preserve long-term affordability of HOME-assisted homes. It also waives repayment if a property becomes financially distressed due to market circumstances beyond individual control. |
What communities should do now:
- Modernize your housing policies: Compare your community’s housing policies and ordinances to best practices. Identify areas that need to be updated and engage the necessary stakeholders.
- Identify potential barriers: Map out the major steps in your permitting and review processes and identify areas to streamline.
- Break down departmental silos: set up regular coordination between housing, planning, code enforcement, community development, and social service agencies. This will improve pilot implementation, data sharing, and program operation.
What Happens Now that the Road to Housing Act Has Become Law?
Passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act marked the beginning of implementation, not the immediate launch of every new program. While a handful of provisions may take effect immediately through statutory changes, most of the new grant programs outlined here will require annual appropriations from Congress before HUD can award grants. Funding levels may differ substantially from the maximum amounts authorized in the legislation and, in some years, programs may receive no funding at all.
The next step is for HUD and other federal agencies to begin reviewing the legislation and developing implementation guidance. Communities should monitor:
- Requests for Information (RFIs) seeking stakeholder input on program design.
- Requests for Comment on proposed regulations or guidance.
- Program guidance explaining eligibility, application requirements, and performance measures.
The most important step for municipalities right now is to focus on the readiness actions outlined above. You will be best positioned to apply for funding if you have already done the work of identifying vacant property inventories, establishing referral systems, building cross-sector partnerships, prioritizing redevelopment sites, and identifying local policy barriers.
If your municipality needs help developing a strategy for dealing with widespread property vacancy, abandonment, and deterioration in your community, the Center for Community Progress is here to help. Our technical assistance team has decades of experience supporting state and local governments with developing comprehensive approaches to community revitalization. Contact us or click here to read about our past impact in communities like yours.
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