Kentuckians feel rising prices every day at the gas pump and grocery store. But there’s one day each month that hits harder than all the others: the day the rent or mortgage payment comes due.
For most families, housing is the biggest bill they face each month. And increasingly, it’s the cost that determines what families have to give up.
Young couples with decent jobs can’t afford starter homes. Renters open lease renewals bracing for another increase. Families put off vacations, home repairs, or even having children because housing costs are taking the money first.
The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. People are spending much of adulthood trying to reach a milestone that used to come much earlier.
Even people who already own homes know something is off. They look at their own kids and wonder whether they’ll realistically be able to afford lives of their own someday.
This affects entire communities. Employers struggle to hire because workers can’t afford to live nearby. Young adults leave hometowns they love because there’s no realistic path to staying. Teachers, nurses, police officers, tradespeople, and service workers increasingly find themselves priced out of the communities that depend on them.
There’s no single reason housing costs got this high. A lack of housing supply, rising construction costs, higher interest rates, zoning and infrastructure challenges, investor activity in some markets, and wages failing to keep pace have all collided at once. That’s why there is no single fix, either.
In this year’s legislative session, House Democrats proposed a broad housing package aimed at increasing housing supply, helping first-time homebuyers, supporting renters, improving infrastructure, and making it easier to build workforce housing across Kentucky. In addition, I filed legislation calling for a $100 million appropriation from Kentucky’s budget reserve trust fund to create a revolving affordable housing loan pool to help finance housing construction and redevelopment projects across the state.
The proposals never received a hearing before the full House.
One proposal that nearly passed this year was a Republican-sponsored bill with bipartisan support that would have allowed communities to finance housing-related infrastructure over time instead of paying major upfront costs that can slow development. Unfortunately, in the final days of session, the bill was loaded up with additional provisions, including language that would have restricted local communities’ ability to regulate short-term rentals like Airbnbs. That killed the bill.
One of the frustrating things about the lack of action on this issue is that there’s already broad agreement that housing is a serious problem. We’ve had two legislative task forces focused on housing affordability and housing supply. We’ve talked about the issue extensively. Reports have been written. Recommendations have been made.
But this session also showed how easily housing legislation can get sidetracked once the final weeks of the General Assembly become crowded with competing priorities and last-minute maneuvering.
If housing is truly a priority, it has to remain a priority when the General Assembly gavels in.
The interim period between sessions should now be used to build real bipartisan agreement around housing solutions. If lawmakers wait until the final weeks of a legislative session to seriously tackle an issue this large and complicated, the chances of meaningful progress shrink dramatically.
Housing needs to enter next session with momentum already in place, not left fighting for attention during the session’s final days, when major legislation often gets tangled up in unrelated fights and last-minute negotiations.
Because the pressure Kentucky families are feeling is not going away.
And neither should the urgency to address it.
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Written by House Democratic Whip Joshua Watkins.
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