Federal housing grants now punish slow-growth cities to reward sprawl.
H.R. 6363 — Build Now Act of 2025 · Filed by Lisa McClain (R-MI) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 2, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill modifies how the federal government allocates Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) to cities and counties. Instead of using a fixed formula, it rewards jurisdictions that are building housing faster than their peers with bonus funding, and penalizes those building slower by cutting their allocations by 10%. The goal is to incentivize local governments to reduce zoning and permitting barriers to housing construction.
Why we flagged it
The bill is fundamentally a reallocation formula for federal housing grants, designed to shift funding toward jurisdictions with faster housing growth rates. It is not a direct subsidy or tax provision, but rather a conditional redistribution of existing CDBG dollars based on housing production metrics.
What the text implies
- Cities with slower housing growth—often lower-income, minority-majority, or post-industrial communities—will lose 10% of CDBG funding, which supports affordable housing development, community centers, and infrastructure. This may deepen regional inequality.
- The bill excludes jurisdictions with high rental vacancy rates, high fair-market rents, or recent disaster declarations from eligibility. This may inadvertently exclude communities most in need of housing investment.
- The bonus allocation formula is complex and opaque: it depends on the aggregate decrease across all penalized jurisdictions and the relative size of housing stock. Local officials may struggle to predict funding levels, complicating budget planning.
- The bill assumes that regulatory barriers are the primary constraint on housing supply. In high-cost areas, land scarcity, construction costs, and labor shortages may be more binding; in slow-growth areas, weak demand may be the issue. The incentive structure may not address root causes.
- By tying CDBG allocations to housing growth rates, the bill may pressure cities to approve housing projects that do not align with local planning priorities or community preferences, effectively using federal funding as leverage for deregulation.
Who it affects
The bill may increase housing supply in high-growth areas by rewarding jurisdictions that remove regulatory barriers, potentially lowering housing costs for renters and buyers. However, it punishes slower-growing cities by cutting their CDBG funding, which supports affordable housing, community services, and infrastructure in lower-income areas—potentially harming vulnerable populations in those jurisdictions.
Who stands to gain
- Real estate developers and construction firms in high-growth metropolitan areas
- Property management companies in jurisdictions with strong housing production
- Homebuilders and residential construction contractors
Named in the bill
HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development), Bureau of the Census, US Postal Service, Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 2 Democrats.
- Dec 2, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Dec 2, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and House Committee on Financial Services · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Financial Services, and in addition to the Committee on Oversight and Government…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. Those filings disclosed $150,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 20 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Lisa McClain, the sponsor, reported $1,545,787 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- The Metrohealth System — $150,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jan 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the full bill text on Jun 8, 2026; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jan 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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