October 28, 2025

Warren, Warnock, Cleaver, Pressley Introduce Innovation Fund Act to Bring Down Housing Costs by Incentivizing Communities To Build Housing

Bill passed the Senate in the landmark bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act

Bill Text Here

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Miss.), Ranking Member of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced the “Innovation Fund Act” to establish a program to reward communities that are taking innovative steps to increase housing supply. The bill creates a competitive pot of highly flexible funding for communities that are building more housing, which can be used to improve community infrastructure, build housing, and supplement water and sewer grants.. The bill is included in the landmark bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act, which recently passed the Senate in the FY2026 NDAA. Ranking Member Warren first introduced the Innovation Fund in her 2018 American Housing and Economic Mobility Act.

The Innovation Fund Act:

  • Will award competitive grants to cities, counties, other units of local government or Indian tribes that have demonstrated an objective improvement in housing supply.

  • Requires applicants to describe how they are currently facilitating the expansion of their housing supply.

  • Will prioritize eligible entities that demonstrate the use of innovative policies, interventions, or programs to increase housing supply.

  • Allows eligible entities to use the funds to carry out CDBG eligible activities, as matching funds for water and sewer grants, and for initiatives that facilitate the expansion of the supply of attainable housing and supplement initiatives the eligible entity has carried out.

Full bill text here

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