National Housing Crisis Task Force
Addressing America’s Housing Crisis
The National Housing Crisis Task Force was founded in 2024 to meet this generational moment. Co-chaired by Governor Spencer Cox, Mayor Justin Bibb, Mayor Andre Dickens, and Susan Thomas, the Task Force brings together leaders across parties, sectors, and places to drive solutions to America’s housing crisis from the ground up. The Task Force has a broad membership of leading researchers and practitioners from across America. Together they represent innovative public agencies, financial institutions, investors, developers, philanthropies, research centers, and nonprofits. The Task Force is supported by some of the most respected philanthropies and corporations in the country and staffed by subject matter experts with deep housing experience in the public, private, and philanthropic sectors.
In its first 18 months, the Task Force has produced two nation-leading agendas: a Federal Policy Agenda, which contains dozens of practical policies that have advanced in the ROAD to Housing Act, the 21st Century Housing Act, and the Build HUBS Act; and a State and Local Housing Action Plan, which profiled 15 best-in-class innovations from around the country, which has a cohort of energetic mayors, governors, and practitioners we are working with to replicate them.
How
Our Approach to Change
Our theory of change holds that housing innovation spreads when:
- We harness the problem-solving abilities of state, local, civic, and private practitioners. The current housing system is overly oriented towards existing federal programs and proposed federal solutions, minimizing the power, capital, and agency that localities possess to address the crisis.
- We make it easier to spread good ideas fast. We identify, elevate, and scale good ideas that work.
- We reduce the risk of trying new housing solutions. Many housing problems we face today require new, un-tested, approaches; we help first-movers design and pilot them, while providing staff support and reputational cover to break through institutional and political inertia.
- We cultivate trusted messengers across siloed sectors, places, and political parties. America’s current housing system is fragmented with few trusted voices who can speak across its component parts; we convene our members and generate shared buy-in on marquee policy documents and replicable workstreams that translate across divides.
Partners and Funders
Our Work is Made Possible By
