The progressives’ bill calls for investing over $100 billion in public housing over the next decade.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) are set to unveil new legislation on Monday focusing on improving public housing and making it more climate friendly. The bill is called the Green New Deal of Public Housing and is an arm of the larger Green New Deal (GND) package. It’s an updated version of the bill of the same name that the lawmakers introduced in 2019 to create jobs, retrofit public housing to be more energy-efficient and use clean energy to power the buildings. “We’re here to make sure the Democratic Party upholds its values and keeps its promises, and to also push and expand the scope and the ambition of the Democratic Party,” Ocasio-Cortez told The New York Times. This year’s bill, which is estimated to cost between $119 billion and $172 billion over the next decade, will stand in contrast to President Joe Biden’s proposal for public housing in his infrastructure bill. Biden calls for only $40 billion for public housing, and many Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), have called on Biden to spend more. Ocasio-Cortez promoted the bill on Twitter, saying, “Today, we’re reintroducing the Green New Deal for Public Housing because — with millions on the brink of eviction, millions under/unemployed, and with a coming climate crisis — investing in our housing infrastructure has never been more important.
