It is imperative for local government officials and city planners to understand who is most vulnerable to the impacts of extreme heat and how temperatures vary throughout a city to develop effective heat mitigation and response strategies.
The federal government needs to shift as much of its infrastructure investments as possible away from dark and impervious surfaces and toward cool and pervious “smart surfaces.”
Extreme heat kills more people on average every year than any other extreme weather event. A major operational barrier to extreme heat response planning is a lack of data-driven decision-making resources, such as impact-based forecasts.
Establishing an NIH Office of Infection-Associated Chronic Illness Research can guard against the long-term effects of Covid and lead to novel breakthroughs across many less understood diseases.
A supply-side tax credit (STC) could offer a tax incentive to material suppliers and professional service consultants that provide goods or services to affordable housing projects.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Department of Commerce, and Department of Transportation should jointly develop and manage a data resource—a Housing Production Dashboard—to track housing production within and across states.
Exempting affordable housing from volume caps would address the underlying issue and have the greatest impact in this housing emergency.
The U.S. should establish a national housing loss rate to stand alongside the national unemployment rate as a key indicator of social and economic well-being.
To increase the supply of affordable homes, Congress should make greater investments in the National Housing Trust Fund (HTF).
Creating a federally guaranteed investor mortgage combined with an optional construction loan will assemble a larger base of qualified borrowers financially positioned to purchase and build more housing inventory.
Deeper affordability milestones would garner exponentially more credits to steer resources toward greatest needs. Additional credits would be awarded for proposals in regions facing urgent supply shortages.
Instead of limiting reconstruction projects to a one-for-one replacement, HUD should allow communities to rebuild homes to a number of units allowed by their locally adopted zoning and development codes.