POLITICO: Unions launch coalition for housing affordability
04/28/2025 10:00 AM EDT
FIRST IN SHIFT: The nation’s affordability crisis is prompting unions to band together to find ways to ensure their members have access to housing.
A group led by the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, is launching a campaign dubbed “Housing for Us” to get President Donald Trump to commit to ensuring proceeds from the sale of two federally-controlled housing programs are allocated to housing programs for workers.
“We have a housing crisis in red and blue states alike and the only meaningful solution is building more housing stock,” the group's President Gary LaBarbera said. “But we can’t just keep building luxury condos. We need workforce housing for the forgotten middle class.”
The coalition wants Trump to end the conservatorships of two government-sponsored housing financiers — known colloquially as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae — after Trump began the process of doing so during his first term. Both firms reduce risk for investors by creating financial products to support the mortgage market.
Although some skeptics argue that sunsetting the federal government’s control over both companies could raise rates, labor groups believe Trump should exhaust every lever to bring down housing prices, including using the proceeds from the sale of both enterprises to create a loan program to fund workforce housing.
Their position is also shared by Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), who ran a successful campaign on reducing the cost of living while receiving support from labor groups. Suozzi, a co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, is hoping Republicans will join the coalition because there’s a bipartisan desire to rein in high prices.
“What could be better than teaming up with building trade unions to try and do it in a way that actually creates jobs and also creates housing that's affordable?” he told Shift. “It's a pretty good combination.”