Housing Policy

Housing Villains

Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani both do their bit to sabotage healthy housing policy.

Christian Britschgi | 6.30.2026 3:20 PM

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(Illustration: Aaron Schwartz -Pool via CNP/CNP/Polaris/Newscom/Lev Radin/Pacific Press/Newscom/Paul Hakimata/Dreamstime)

Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. 

Last week, I was off on a vacation that unfortunately yielded few insights into housing policy, besides the errant shower thought that all-inclusive seaside resorts offer one a taste of the post-scarcity mixed-use walkable urbanism we all might one day enjoy, if we only fix our zoning laws.

Rent Free Newsletter by Christian Britschgi. Get more of Christian's urban regulation, development, and zoning coverage.

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Unfortunately, this past week of housing news provided ample examples of people who are standing in the way of that bright automated luxury capitalist future.

This week's newsletter thus focuses on two of these housing villains.

The first is President Donald Trump, who is once again proving to be an obstacle to the final enactment of a long-in-the-works bipartisan housing bill that includes a number of positive supply-side reforms.

The second is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who at last made good on his campaign trail promise to "freeze the rent"—much to the detriment of the physical and financial health of rent-stabilized housing in the Big Apple.

Lastly, I wanted to include a brief item explaining why the mayor's rent freeze is not likely to be the final straw that convinces the U.S. Supreme Court to end rent control once and for all.

Donald Trump Once Again Emerges as the Primary Obstacle to Bipartisan Housing Reform

Last week, Congress at last approved the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act by wide bipartisan margins in both chambers.

The final bill passed with 85 yeas to five nays in the Senate and was approved in the House on a 358–32 margin.

It now faces its final boss: Trump.

This past Wednesday, the president canceled a signing ceremony for the bill and said that he would not sign the legislation until Congress passed the SAVE America Act, a piece of partisan election legislation.

"It's a yawn," he said in the Oval Office on Monday in reference to the bill while reupping his demand that Republicans end the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act.

That same day, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.) transmitted the housing bill to Trump. He has 10 days to sign it or veto it. If he doesn't sign the bill within 10 days, it becomes law anyway.

The bill passed with enough support that even if Trump vetoed it, Congress would have the votes to override that veto. Whether the Republican-controlled Congress would defy a Republican president by overturning his veto is another question entirely.

All that is to say that Trump is once again playing spoiler to a bill with wide bipartisan support that includes one of his major second-term priorities: a ban on large investor purchases of single-family homes.

The housing bill, readers might recall, began life last year in the Senate Banking Committee. It was there that Banking Chairman Tim Scott (R–S.C.) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) agreed to put together a bipartisan bill that advanced each of their housing policy priorities without spending a ginormous amount of new money.

The initial bill included supply-side proposals from Scott to pare back some federal building code regulations of manufactured homes and expand private investment in federally subsidized housing, as well as Warren's longtime idea for a federal grant program that rewards states and localities for liberalizing their zoning codes.

The then–ROAD to Housing Act quickly became a vehicle for a lot of other wonky supply-side reforms that had been introduced as stand-alone bills over the years.

Other supply-side policies lumped into that initial bill included a bill exempting federally subsidized housing developments from environmental review requirements, a bill that directs more Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to jurisdictions that are building more housing, a bill prioritizing federal transit grants to projects being built in areas with looser zoning rules, and a........

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