In a display of unity on Capitol Hill, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee overwhelmingly advanced the “Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act of 2025,” a sweeping bipartisan housing bill spanning 315 pages. The measure, which passed 24-0 in committee, marks the first major cross-party housing deal to clear such a hurdle in nearly a decade.
The legislation was introduced by Senator Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican who chairs the committee, alongside ranking member Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. Working jointly with more than a dozen senators, the pair crafted the bill to target a broad array of long-standing housing challenges.
Addressing his colleagues before the vote, Scott highlighted the significance of the rare agreement. “Many people around the country, frustrated with the way we do American politics, wonder, is there any issue that brings this nation together? And I’m here to say hallelujah! We have found one. It is housing,” he told the committee.
The ROAD to Housing Act contains 40 provisions, touching nearly every slice of the housing market. Its measures range from increasing housing in new permanent opportunity zones, establishing an innovation fund and home repair assistance, to bolstering manufactured housing and incentivizing small-dollar loan originators. The proposal also addresses housing appraisals, family savings programs, rural and veteran housing, reducing homelessness and intensifying oversight and accountability efforts. At least 27 separate bills—23 of them with bipartisan sponsorship—have been folded into the final package.
The bill’s breadth has drawn praise from housing advocates and analytic organizations alike. “As the bill currently stands, it would be the most impactful and comprehensive piece of housing legislation since the Great Recession,” the Bipartisan Policy Center concluded in a recent assessment.
Yet challenges remain, especially regarding the federal agency tasked with implementing much of the law. “There are new programs here that should operate more directly with the states and local communities so that we’re not at the mercy of a stripped-down HUD. But I worry about HUD being under-resourced to meet its current obligations, much less to take on more,” Warren told Politico. Plus, lawmakers from both parties echoed her concerns about longstanding capacity issues at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“You have to start someplace. And part of it is to upgrade and to modernize a number of the issues that are causing us problems,” Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, told Politico.
With the ROAD Act easily clearing the committee, advocates are now turning their eyes to the House, where the Bipartisan Policy Center anticipates the bill will move to a markup this fall.
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