The 21st Century Road to Housing Act, legislation recently passed in Washington D.C., could help boost construction of modular housing across the United States, increasing production of more affordable housing options—and more quickly.
The bill is intended to make it easier and cheaper to build modular and manufactured homes, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper noted: “Modular homes are built in pieces at a factory and assembled on site, and they often appear quite similar to traditional, stick-built houses. Manufactured homes—often referred to as mobile homes or trailers—are built entirely at a factory and shipped whole to their destination.”
In June, the Department of Housing and Urban Development published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that, the agency claimed, would “update the definition of a manufactured home and support innovative opportunities for multi-story manufactured housing.”
The department further noted: “Under the proposed rule, the new definition of a manufactured home, as noted in the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards, commonly known as the HUD Code, would allow upper floor sections to be transported and constructed without a permanent chassis.”
The requirement for a permanent chassis adds an estimated $5,000 to $10,000 to the price tag of a manufactured home—a steep premium for these lower cost homes.
However, the Wall Street Journal reported that the “law doesn’t create a national building standard for modular construction, the type of overhaul experts say is necessary for the U.S. to scale factory-built housing. Instead, it directs HUD only to study the idea, with no deadline or requirement that a standard actually result. One expert told the Journal, ‘My read of it is it’s really a study and rule-making directive, not a policy change.’”
According to HUD, more than 20 million Americans reside in manufactured homes, and HUD Code manufactured homes provide safe and affordable housing for families and support pathways to stability and wealth building.
Ged Kenslea, Senior Director of Communications at AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has worked on public health issues for 30 years.
