PRIA, Government Policy, Made Personal

Summary

Congress says the country is not making new housing fast enough and restates the goal of giving every American family a decent home and a good place to live. Congress says that goal could largely be met in the next decade by building or fixing 26 million housing units, and that 6 million of those should be for low- and moderate-income families. Congress also finds that too little effort has gone into saving and repairing the homes we already have. Housing for lower-income families has gotten worse, hurting neighborhoods. To reach the goal, more work must go into preserving homes, doing moderate repairs, improving how housing is run and maintained, and making sure local services are good, especially where problems are just starting.

Title 42, §1441a

The Public Health and Welfare, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)Congressional findings and reaffirmation of goals

The Congress finds that the supply of the Nation’s housing is not increasing rapidly enough to meet the national housing goal, established in the Housing Act of 1949 [42 U.S.C. 1441 et seq.], of the “realization as soon as feasible of the goal of a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family”. The Congress reaffirms this national housing goal and determines that it can be substantially achieved within the next decade by the construction or rehabilitation of twenty-six million housing units, six million of these for low and moderate income families.

(b)Additional Congressional findings

The Congress further finds that policies designed to contribute to the achievement of the national housing goal have not directed sufficient attention and resources to the preservation of existing housing and neighborhoods, that the deterioration and abandonment of housing for the Nation’s lower income families has accelerated over the last decade, and that this acceleration has contributed to neighborhood disintegration and has partially negated the progress toward achieving the national housing goal which has been made primarily through new housing construction.

(c)Congressional declaration of purposes

The Congress declares that if the national housing goal is to be achieved, a greater effort must be made to encourage the preservation of existing housing and neighborhoods through such measures as housing preservation, moderate rehabilitation, and improvements in housing management and maintenance, in conjunction with the provision of adequate municipal services. Such an effort should concentrate, to a greater extent than it has in the past, on housing and neighborhoods where deterioration is evident but has not yet become acute.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

The Housing Act of 1949, referred to in subsec. (a), is act July 15, 1949, ch. 338, 63 Stat. 413, which is classified principally to this chapter (§ 1441 et seq.). For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see

Short Title

note set out under section 1441 of this title and Tables. Codification Section was not enacted as part of the Housing Act of 1949 which comprises this chapter.

Amendments

1974—Pub. L. 93–383 designated existing provisions as subsec. (a) and added subsecs. (b) and (c).

§1441a National Housing Goals