The White House is opening up $45 billion in federal funds to developers looking to turn big-city office buildings into homes.

The White House kicked off a multiagency push on Friday to help finance real-estate developers convert more office buildings in big cities emptied by the pandemic into affordable housing, taking aim at the nation’s housing crisis.

The initiative looks to harness an existing $35 billion in low-cost loans already available through the Transportation Department to fund housing developments near transit hubs, folding it into the Biden administration’s clean energy push.

It also opens up additional funding sources and tax incentives, offering a new guidebook to 20 different federal programs that can be tapped by developers and offers technical assistance in what can end up being tricky and expensive conversions.

A third peg of the program will see the federal government draw up a public list of buildings it owns that could be made available for sale to help bolster development.

  • SeaJ@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    I wonder if Amazon will allow the push for coming back into the office because of this. I doubt it. They’ll just take the money and run.

      • shastaxc@lemm.ee
        3·
        1 year ago

        It should be illegal to force people to relocate like that. It’s not the military. The only option is to do it or quit, and employers know that it’s going to cause lots of people to quit so they end up not having to fire them and pay unemployment benefits or severance. It’s a scummy loophole that needs to be plugged with new worker protection laws.