If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are released from federal conservatorship via a public stock offering, the proceeds should be invested in housing for middle-class U.S. workers, a coalition of labor leaders and congressional lawmakers declared Thursday during a rally at the House Triangle on Capitol Hill.
The event, organized by the nonprofit group Housing for US, featured speeches from a bipartisan group of U.S. representatives from New York and Wisconsin. The lawmakers were united by a shared desire to see working-class families benefit from a federal windfall resulting from selling shares of Fannie and Freddie.
The government-sponsored mortgage giants have been under federal control since the 2008 financial crisis. President Donald Trump has floated the idea of releasing the companies from that status, saying in a May 21 social media post that they are “throwing off a lot of CASH, and the time would seem to be right” to take them public again.
According to Housing for US, the projected federal proceeds from that process would be $250 billion. The nonprofit argues that those funds should be used to establish a program that makes affordable housing construction economically viable for developers. Housing for US projects that the program could yield 3.5 million housing units that would be earmarked for households earning between 80% and 165% of the median income in a designated geographic area.
“Housing is the No. 1 issue for union workers in red states and blue states alike,” Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, said at the event, according to a press release. “The rent is too high, and so is the cost of homeownership. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to responsibly release Fannie and Freddie and invest the $250 billion the federal government will reap back into America’s forgotten middle class.”
Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., noted that homeownership is “out of reach for many hardworking Americans.” He said that reinvesting the federal proceeds from a Fannie and Freddie stock offering in a housing program would serve the dual function of addressing the country’s affordable housing crisis and creating jobs.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y. said that many middle-class workers “find themselves in limbo because they don’t make enough to afford [the] market rate but make too much to qualify for affordable housing.”
“This is an opportunity to deliver critical assistance to hard-working Americans by giving them the ability to buy homes built with American labor,” Malliotakis said.
