Hailed as one of the most significant pieces of housing legislation in American history, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act became law at midnight, July 11th 2026. The Act’s provisions include modernizing and streamlining federal and local housing processes, allowing the use of ready-to-use and pre-approved home designs, exempting small-scale housing developments from federal environmental review, and improvements that facilitate the construction and financing of manufactured homes.
The Act, which passed the House 358-32 and the Senate 85-5, has over 60 sections assisting homebuilders and buyers through deregulation, increased access to grants, and increased access to private financing. Some highlights of the bill that benefit composite manufacturers and suppliers are:
Title II – Building More in America, focuses on changes that ease zoning, financing, and create programs to build more housing. Many components of houses use FRP products such as baths, countertops, and siding.
- Sec. 202 creates a HUD pilot program to supports state, local, and tribal whole-home repair programs, which provide grants and forgivable loans to homeowners and landlord for home repairs and modifications.
- Sec. 208 of the bill, Innovation Fund, unlocks funds for communities that take innovative steps to improve infrastructure and build housing, rewarding creative solutions to grow housing supply. Grants range from $250,000 to $10 million each.
Title III- Manufactured Housing for America, makes a number of changes to the manufactured housing industry. FRP composites are used as components in manufactured housing.
- Sec. 301, updates the Federal Definition of manufactured housing to include units not built on a permanent chassis to encourage innovation and expand naturally occurring affordable housing, a move that ACMA supports.
- Sec. 303 expands access to financing for manufactured and modular housing.
- Sec. 304 authorizes the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide grants to communities to maintain, protect, and stabilize manufactured housing and manufactured housing communities allowing for improvements in a housing stock in desperate need of upgrades.
You can read more about this historic bipartisan act on the Bipartisan Policy Center’s webpage: 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Implementation Tracker • Bipartisan Policy Center
ACMA President & CEO, Cindy Squires, Esq., released a statement congratulating the broad bipartisan accomplishment. “We look forward to collaborating with our existing and new partners in this market to do what the composites industry does best: develop innovative applications of our materials to lower cost, increase durability, and make our economy stronger.”
Read the full post on LinkedIn.