As Scott Turner, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), awaits Senate confirmation, America faces a critical housing affordability crisis. During his confirmation hearing, Turner explained, “We have a housing crisis in our country. We need millions of homes.”

But to solve the housing crisis, Turner must prioritize deregulation, streamline HUD’s budget and expand Opportunity Zones to stimulate private investment and address the housing shortage directly.

America’s housing shortage is staggering. Studies estimate that the country needs over 3.8 million additional homes to meet demand. Skyrocketing rents and housing prices have put immense pressure on working families, low-income households and first-time homebuyers.

Government is a big part of the problem. On the first day of his new term, Trump issued an executive order, Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost of Living Crisis. In it he notes that high housing prices are “in part due to regulatory requirements that alone account for 25%  of the cost of constructing a new home according to recent analysis.”

In Turner’s confirmation hearing, there was bipartisan agreement that one of the root causes of the nation’s housing affordability crisis is a housing shortage. 

“As a country, we’re not building enough housing,” Turner said in his opening statement before the committee. “We need millions more homes of all kinds, single family, apartments, condos, duplexes,........

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