During a March 7 hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance, Committee Chair Ron Wyden announced his reintroduction of the Decent, Affordable, Safe Housing for All (DASH) Act, which LeadingAge has endorsed.

“The nation’s housing crisis has been growing steadily for decades, and with every year that passes, more people struggle to keep a roof over their heads and more people wind up on the street. It’s long past time for federal policy to reflect the fact that housing is a human right,” Chair Wyden said.

The bill would provide a voucher to everyone experiencing homelessness, and would increase resources for the national Housing Trust Fund and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. It would also improve the housing credit program for extremely low income people and protect nonprofit ownership and preservation of housing credit by replacing the housing credit’s right of first refusal with a purchase option for projects financed after the date of enactment, create a renter’s tax credit, and create a new middle-income tax credit for households with incomes between 60 and 100% of area median income, among other provisions.