You just heard from Charles Booker.

His Senate opponent, Congressman Andy Barr, joined U.S.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner at Transylvania University in Lexington to discuss affordable housing, as our McKinsey speak reports.

Turner and Barr praised the university's affordable housing initiative and described their work at the federal level to improve the cost of housing.

Two years ago, Transylvania University announced that its former baseball field would become 12.5 acres of diverse affordable housing units.

The project was made possible by a group of local banks coming together to purchase the land.

Secretary Scott Turner, who heads the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, praises the community buy in and hopes to see similar projects across the country.

It is a tremendous example of local community banks coming together, people that on a normal basis they compete, you know, for equity, they compete for these loans, they compete for clients.

But because they want to bring a solution, they came together.

And I think that's something that can be and should be replicated.

As a member of the U.S.

House Committee on Financial Services, Representative Barr helped to pass the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which became law this July.

This bipartisan measure reduces red tape for developers and supports community and rural banks, with the hope of building more affordable homes faster.

Through this legislation, we're streamlining regulations, reducing regulations.

We're liberating community financial institutions to provide more capital, to provide for more construction.

We're making it easier for modular and manufacturing housing in rural America.

Representative Barr has also sponsored the Housing Plus Act, which would reform HUD's current Housing First model, which prioritizes housing solutions for the homeless that don't require employment or addiction treatment.

Barr says the Housing First strategy hasn't worked.

In the final year of the Biden administration in 2024.

Homelessness hit a all time high.

So after 15 years of housing first, we know that that model failed.

The Housing Plus Act would require 30% of Continuum of Care funds to be directed to providers that offer wraparound services like job training or addiction treatment.

This is not just putting a roof over someone's head, it is identifying the underlying causes of homelessness and getting it that whether that's mental health treatment, whether it is addiction recovery, whether it is job training and job skills.

We know that homelessness is not just the absence of a roof over someone's head.

It is that we have to give wraparound services to these individuals, meet them where they are so that we can give them the tools to succeed, not just have a free apartment.

However, Barr says one housing initiative that doesn't get enough attention is reducing the national debt.

So often we hear from Washington and some of my colleagues in the Congress say, well, the answer is more section eight housing.

The answer is more federal spending.

The answer is just more tax.

Just shovel more tax dollars.

At the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

And it is not often remembered that the 30 year fixed rate mortgage.

And the reason why interest rates are high, the way they are higher than they were.

Why mortgage rates are where they are is because we have a $40 trillion national debt that the ten year Treasury is what drives the 30 year fixed rate mortgage.

If you want to lower the cost of mortgages in this country, reduce the deficit.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Mackenzie Spink.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition and National Alliance to End Homelessness oppose Congressman Barr's Housing plus Act.

They say it is an attempt to siphon away funds from housing models that have been proven to be effective.