With a vote of 89 – 10, the Senate passed the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act on March 12, 2026.  If enacted, the bill would represent the first major bipartisan housing reform in Congress in roughly ten years.

Championed by Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the bill covers a wide array of federal housing program adjustments, including several that LeadingAge supports related to the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), rural housing preservation, Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), and more. LeadingAge supports the bill.

In floor remarks in support of the legislation, Chair Scott (R-SC)  called the legislation “consequential.” Likewise, Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren called the legislation “the biggest package of bills to make housing affordable in 30 years.”

The bill is an update to the Senate’s ROAD to Housing Act from 2025, which LeadingAge had worked to improve, and incorporates some provisions from the Housing for the 21st Century Act, which the House passed on February 9. The legislation that passed the chamber remained largely unchanged from the text introduced earlier in March, and a manager’s amendment offered by Chair Scott incorporated input from LeadingAge and amended the bill to bring back a requirement that the GAO to examine barriers to scaling affordable housing for older adults.

Now, the two chambers need to reconcile their respective bills into one final version. The President has weighed in with his support for the Senate’s current version. Most notably, the bill advances several improvements to the HOME Investment Partnership Program (HOME). HOME is a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program that provides flexible funding to state and local governments for various uses related to affordable housing. State and local governments often use it to fill financing gaps in housing development projects, for homeownership assistance, and for tenant-based rental assistance. The Senate-passed legislation also includes LeadingAge-driven improvements to provisions on the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), a critical preservation program for affordable senior housing. In a LeadingAge-supported nod to housing preservation needs in rural areas, the bill decouples certain USDA-funded rental assistance from maturing mortgages so that rental assistance is preserved.

Another key distinction between this bill, the Senate’s original ROAD to Housing Act, and the House-passed bill is the inclusion of White House-driven language to prohibit for-profit “institutional investors” from acquiring large amounts of single-family homes, which the White House says drives up housing costs. While nonprofits and most senior housing are exempt from the purchasing ban, LeadingAge worked closely with Senate leadership to address possible issues for our housing provider members within the bill, in particular nonprofit members who partner with for-profits on mixed-age housing preservation transactions.

For example, LeadingAge joined other housing advocacy organizations in sending a letter of support to Chairman Scott and Ranking Member Warren, but also alerted them to the potential impacts of the institutional investor ban on Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) preservation transactions in rural areas, where the housing is more likely to be in single family and duplex structures. The institutional investor language is a top priority for the Trump administration, complicating negotiations for lawmakers who have been alerted to the potential unintended consequences of the current text.

Another key difference between the original Senate legislation advanced in 2025 and the new version is the absence of many provisions that would have required funding to implement new programs or pilots because of budget-related pushback. LeadingAge had supported the establishment of new housing programs, including transit-oriented housing developments and additional housing supply frameworks.

The bill also does not address the several key LeadingAge priorities. Mainly, the bill does not address the problems of the domestic procurement requirements through Build America, Buy America (BABA) within HUD programs that had been in earlier iterations of the bill.

The path for housing reform legislation to the President’s desk remains unclear. House leaders have indicated they may pursue a formal conference process, citing substantial policy differences between the two bills that could result in prolonged delays. Further complicating matters, President Trump has said recently he would not sign any other legislation until his current top legislative priority, a bill requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections, is passed by Congress. LeadingAge continues to monitor the progress on this legislation closely. For more information on this bill, click here.