U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff , D-Ga, stands with new homeowner Tanjills Sawyer at a press conference in Hampton on Monday, May 6, 2024, announcing federal funds for housing in Clayton County. ATLANTA — Law student Aundria Towns and her partner, health care worker Hayden Herrick, have a household income of more than $100,000. Pre-pandemic, those earnings might have given the Douglas County, Georgia, couple a pick of houses.
“A lot of people don’t want to say it but it’s a housing crisis,” she said. “Everything out there is $300,000 or $350,000. A lot of people see that as not being affordable.”After years of inertia, conservative lawmakers have joined liberals at the national, state and local levels in recognizing there is a housing affordability crisis and are doing something about it. And for the first time in decades, housing could be a major issue during a presidential campaign.
“I would be really wary of someone who’s running for national office who promises me that they’re going to fix housing affordability because they’re not here in Atlanta or in Alpharetta, or here in Roswell with boots on the ground” she said. Jim Parrott, Barack Obama’s policy advisor and a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute’s Housing Financing Policy Center, said he expects housing to be a running theme of the 2024 campaign. He said the issue could impact state and local races in Georgia, especially if Biden’s campaign surrogates adopt housing as a talking point.
Trump discriminated against tenants when he was a landlord, added Porshalain White, Georgia state director for the Biden campaign. It remains to be seen whether Biden’s proposals will be enough to persuade voters otherwise. Fairweather, of Redfin, said that one of the reasons people might have