Affordable housing legislation would support struggling families

It’s good to see a detailed Op Ed addressing our pervasive national affordable housing crisis (“Only feds can fix affordable housing crisis”). Matthew Rieger lauds the new bipartisan legislation: Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2019. I noticed that our very own Sen. Maria Cantwell is one of the eight congressional leaders who introduced it.

Did you know that in the late 1970s, our country had even a modest surplus of affordable housing units for the lowest-income people? Adjusted for inflation, the federal budget for housing assistance programs 50 years ago was nearly three times more than it is today, despite significant growth in the number of low-income renters eligible for housing assistance. But President Trump wants to cut housing assistance even more.

In Trump’s 2017 tax code, $200 billion in tax cuts goes to the top 20% of households. We need to support struggling working families. Thank you, Sen. Maria Cantwell!

Donna Munro, Bremerton

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