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Housing Affordability
Housing costs are too high for many working families. From January 2017 to October 2025 the median price of a home in Wisconsin, more than doubled, increasing from $179,000 to $389,450.
Over the last five years, mortgage interest rates increased from 2.65% to over 6%.This contributed to an increase in the typical mortgage payment from $1,100 a month to over $2,207. With these increases, it's not just new homebuyers who are impacted. Many current homeowners would not be able to purchase the homes they might have a decade ago, if they were on sale today. Families looking to move closer to a new job, buy a new home, downsize, or relocate are all affected by these increases.
Some important drivers of high housing prices include a lack of supply and workforce needs. Government redtape can also increase housing costs and make building new homes difficult. America needs roughly 6 million more homes to meet housing demands.
I want to hear from you:
I am working to make housing more affordable for Wisconsin families.
This week, the House voted to pass the Housing for the 21st Century Act on a vote of 390-9.
This package of bills addresses the root causes of high housing costs. The bill boosts housing supply by modernizing standards, cuts red tape to reduce the cost of manufactured homes by approximately $3,000, and updates federal permitting to ensure that projects without environmental impacts do not need to undergo extra environmental permitting reviews. It also modernizes HUD programs to support new housing construction.
My bill, the Accelerating Home Building Act, which I introduced with Congresswoman Janelle Bynum (OR-05), was passed as part of this package. Our bill reduces red tape, lowers design costs, streamlines approval timelines, increases affordability, and accelerates construction.
This legislation now heads to the Senate for passage.
Government Benefit Fraud in Wisconsin
Every dollar that goes to waste, fraud, or abuse is a dollar that could go to helping families in need or returned to taxpayers. Changes made in law last year help reduce waste, fraud and abuse in government programs by:
- Strengthening Medicaid eligibility integrity
- Holding states accountable for erroneous payments for government programs like SNAP
- States make $13 billion a year in erroneous SNAP payments
- Implementing work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults of working age of 20 hours a week to receive government benefits
These changes are important because of the instances of fraud we have seen in states like Minnesota and most recently here in Wisconsin. Read more about the alleged $1.6 million fraud incident here.
Supporting Wisconsin Veterans
We owe our veterans gratitude for their service. In Congress, I am working to support our veterans and protect their earned benefits.
Recently, the House passed two additional bills to help our veterans.
The Veterans Readiness and Employment (VR&E) Improvement Act, strengthens vocational rehabilitation services for disabled veterans. This bill expands the pool of VA employees who may provide VR&E counseling, allows VR&E to offer flight training courses not otherwise available to our veterans, and establishes a dedicated phone line for VR&E services—helping veterans access the support they have earned and cutting through red tape.
The VA recently announced they are hiring more than 300 vocational rehabilitation counselors to help our veterans under the VR&E. This will help support the reforms made under this House-passed legislation.
The House also passed the Ernest Peltz Accrued Veterans Benefits Act, which ensures that unpaid pension benefits are paid to a surviving spouse, dependent children, or dependent parents.
Current law is not clear on how the VA should handle pension benefits that are awarded but unpaid at the time of a veteran's death. As a result, families can be left in limbo without access to benefits their loved one earned through service.
This bill provides certainty and peace of mind to veterans' families during an incredibly difficult time.
These bills build on significant investments in veterans care and improvements in veterans services throughout the country. For more information on recent improvements in serving our veterans, click here.
Securing our Elections
Our elections should be safe, secure, and transparent. This week, the House voted to pass the SAVE America Act. This legislation requires photo ID to vote and ensures that non-citizens are not registered on voter rolls for federal elections.
These provisions are commonsense. That is why 80% of Americans support these reforms.
Provisions like photo ID can increase confidence in our elections and, in turn, help increase voter participation.
After similar provisions were passed in Georgia in 2021, the state saw record voter turnout. The University of Georgia also conducted a study and found that Georgia voters also were happy with their voting experience under this law. Importantly, that positive experience cut across multiple demographics including race and sex.
I joined ABC News to discuss this issue and how restoring trust in our elections can help increase voter participation. You can watch our interview here or at the link below.
As always, feel free to contact my office if you have any questions, want to share an opinion, or are having trouble with a federal agency.
On Wisconsin,
Bryan Steil
Member of Congress
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