To address the national housing crisis, Vice President Kamala Harris will, as part of her economic agenda, propose a $40 billion fund to find "local solutions," her campaign said in a statement obtained by ABC News.
Harris’s "innovation fund," which is twice the amount proposed under President Joe Biden, will assist local governments in addressing housing shortages, explore "innovative" methods of construction financing, and make certain federal lands eligible for repurposing into new housing developments, according to her campaign. Harris's campaign offered no further details of how the $40 billion will be used to achieve these goals.
The proposed fund, which aims to address the high mortgage rates and rent costs Americans are facing under the Biden-Harris administration, is part of the economic platform Harris will officially unveil on Friday at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Harris's plan also calls for the construction of 3 million new housing units to "help end the housing supply shortage," while expanding down-payment subsidies with up to $25,000 for first-time buyers.
Harris on Thursday came under scrutiny when her campaign said she will propose an unprecedented federal ban on food and grocery price gouging, with National Review's senior editor Charles Cooke criticizing the radical proposal as an effort to "whitewash" the dismal economic record of the Biden-Harris administration.
While Harris seeks to "blame corporate price gouging for high grocery prices," economists, including those working for the Biden administration, found that other factors such as interest rates, government stimulus, and disruptions in supply chains have played a "much larger" role in pushing up prices than major corporations, according to the New York Times.