Ricketts Speaks During Senate Banking Committee Hearing About Need for More Affordable Housing: “Cut Through the Red Tape”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE), a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, discussed the importance of creating solutions to address the housing shortage crisis. Ricketts said the following:

“The housing shortage in our country is something that is creating problems in all of our communities across this country. And in my state of Nebraska, we talk about rural housing, and that’s one of the things that we worked on when I was Governor of Nebraska,” Ricketts said. “Being able to cut through the red tape and come up with solutions is one of the things that is important to look at. In Nebraska, we created a rural workforce housing bill, which provided $7 million that was available for communities to apply for. The way most communities ended up using this grant was as a revolving fund so that developers would be able to get a low-interest loan to be able to come to a rural community and build houses.” 

Watch the video HERE.

Ricketts’ comments came in a hearing of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs entitled: “Housing Roadblocks: Paving a New Way to Address Affordability.” The witnesses included The Honorable Eric Johnson, Mayor, Dallas, Texas; and Dr. Edward Glaeser, Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, Harvard University.