The RESIDE Act establishes the "Blighted Building to Housing Conversion Program," a HUD pilot that awards competitive grants to participating jurisdictions to turn vacant or abandoned warehouses, factories, malls, hotels, and similar properties into housing. Grants pay for acquisition, demolition, health-hazard remediation, site prep, construction/rehab, and support for community land trusts; converted units must meet the HOME program's rental, sale, and resale rules.
The pilot is funded only if HOME program appropriations exceed $1.35 billion in a fiscal year; HUD may use up to $100 million of any excess for the pilot between FY2027 and FY2031. The bill prioritizes projects in economically distressed communities, Opportunity Zones, consolidated-plan–identified needs, and jurisdictions that have reduced non-safety regulatory barriers to conversion.
HUD can waive certain HUD-administered statutes and regulations to speed conversions, but cannot waive fair housing, nondiscrimination, labor, or environmental protections. HUD must study and report on tax-base effects, access to affordable housing for priority populations, homeownership impacts, and blight removal after the pilot ends.
At a Glance
What It Does
Creates a competitive HUD pilot that converts vacant commercial/industrial buildings into housing by awarding covered grants to participating jurisdictions. Grants cover acquisition through construction and can support community land trusts; converted units are subject to HOME program affordability and resale rules.
Who It Affects
Participating jurisdictions (as defined under the HOME statute), local housing agencies, developers and non‑profits that do adaptive reuse, community land trusts, and households at income bands the bill defines as "attainable" (various AMI thresholds). HUD gains discretionary waiver authority for administrability.
Why It Matters
The bill ties conversion funding to a HOME funding surplus rather than a new standalone appropriation, creating a contingent program that prioritizes distressed areas and Opportunity Zones while preserving key compliance standards. It formalizes a federal pathway to finance adaptive reuse at scale and builds in a post‑pilot evaluation to assess impacts on affordability and local tax bases.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The RESIDE Act defines two central terms that structure the program: "attainable housing," which sets specific AMI-based affordability tests for conversions, and "vacant and abandoned building," which limits eligible properties to former commercial or industrial uses that local code enforcement or state law treats as unsafe or abandoned. Eligible applicants are participating jurisdictions under the HOME statute—typically state and local governments that already receive HOME formula funds.
Funding is the program hinge. For each fiscal year from 2027 through 2031, HUD may divert up to $100 million of HOME program funds into the pilot—but only if HOME appropriations exceed $1.35 billion in that year.
HUD runs a competitive process to award grants, with each grant sized between $1 million and $10 million when the full $100 million is available; in lower‑funded years HUD must try to stretch the available dollars to as many grantees as feasible.The bill lists explicit allowable uses: property acquisition, demolition, remediation of health hazards, site preparation, construction/rehab, and support for establishing or expanding community land trusts. It also says that any converted rental or for‑sale units must follow HOME program rules on rental periods, resale controls, and affordability.
HUD may waive or set alternative requirements for statutes or regulations it administers to facilitate projects, but the bill bars waivers for fair housing, nondiscrimination, labor standards, and environmental requirements.To guide awards, HUD must give priority to jurisdictions that propose work in economically distressed communities, in designated Opportunity Zones, that target needs identified in their consolidated plans, or that have enacted ordinances to cut regulatory barriers to conversion (explicitly excluding changes that weaken safety and habitability standards). Finally, HUD must study outcomes and report to Congress within 180 days after the pilot ends, evaluating impacts on local tax bases, affordable housing access—especially for elderly, disabled people, and veterans—homeownership, and blight removal.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The program activates only when HOME appropriations exceed $1,350,000,000 in a fiscal year; HUD may then use up to $100,000,000 of the excess for the pilot (FY2027–FY2031).
Covered grants are competitive and must be between $1,000,000 and $10,000,000 each when the full $100 million is available; HUD must prioritize maximizing the number of grants if funding is lower.
Eligible applicants are 'participating jurisdictions' under the HOME statute—i.e.
the state and local governments that receive HOME formula allocations—not private developers directly.
The bill preserves HOME program rental, sale, and resale requirements for converted units, but gives HUD authority to waive other HUD‑administered statutes/regulations except for fair housing, nondiscrimination, labor, and environmental protections.
Priority in awards goes to projects in economically distressed communities, qualified Opportunity Zones, projects tied to consolidated‑plan needs, and jurisdictions that have adopted ordinances reducing conversion‑specific regulatory barriers (but not changes affecting safety or habitability).
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title — RESIDE Act
This single line names the statute the "Revitalizing Empty Structures Into Desirable Environments Act" and establishes the short title "RESIDE Act." It has no programmatic effect but sets the bill's intent focus on repurposing vacant structures.
Key definitions that determine eligibility and affordability
The bill defines 'attainable housing' with concrete AMI thresholds tied to unit majority affordability (two alternative tests tied to 100/80% and 120/60% of AMI). It also narrowly defines 'vacant and abandoned building' to former industrial/commercial properties found unsafe by code enforcement or subject to receivership/nuisance abatement, which shapes the universe of projects HUD will consider and excludes traditional residential vacancy conversions.
Funding trigger, cap, and relationship to HOME formula
HUD may use up to $100 million of HOME program 'excess' funds each applicable fiscal year (FY2027–FY2031)—but only when annual HOME appropriations exceed $1.35 billion. The bill specifies that covered grants are additional to HOME formula allocations and do not reduce an eligible entity's HOME formula share, making the pilot contingent on surplus funding rather than a reallocation of baseline HOME dollars.
Grant sizing and distribution approach
When the full $100 million is available, individual grants must fall between $1 million and $10 million. For years with smaller amounts, HUD must 'seek to maximize' the number of grants—language that pushes HUD toward smaller or more numerous awards in lean years but leaves the precise allocation strategy to agency discretion during the competition.
Priority factors and permitted uses of funds
HUD must prioritize proposals in economically distressed communities, qualified Opportunity Zones, projects tied to consolidated-plan needs, and jurisdictions that have reduced non‑safety regulatory hurdles to conversion. Grant funds may pay for acquisition, demolition, remediation, site prep, construction/rehab, and work that establishes or expands community land trusts—supporting both direct production and stewardship models for long‑term affordability.
Applicability of HOME rules and waiver authority
The bill requires that converted units follow HOME's rental, sale, and resale requirements, embedding established affordability and resale controls. Simultaneously, it gives HUD waiver authority over other HUD-administered statutes and regulations to ease administration, but explicitly forbids waiving fair housing, nondiscrimination, labor standards, or environmental requirements—narrowing the space for regulatory relief while preserving core protections.
Post‑pilot study and reporting
HUD must study and report to Congress within 180 days after the pilot ends on impacts including tax‑base improvement, access to affordable housing for elderly, disabled, and veterans, homeownership changes, and blight removal. The required metrics signal congressional intent to evaluate both fiscal and equity outcomes and to inform whether the approach should scale or be revised.
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Explore Housing in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Households targeted by the 'attainable housing' definition—people and families at income bands tied to 60–120% of area median income—gain new units constrained by HOME affordability and resale controls.
- Participating jurisdictions in economically distressed areas or Opportunity Zones, which can access competitive capital to remediate blight and expand housing stock while potentially broadening the local tax base.
- Community land trusts and non‑profit affordable housing developers, who can use grant dollars to acquire and steward converted properties, supporting long‑term affordability and alternative ownership models.
- Adaptive‑reuse developers and construction firms that specialize in converting commercial/industrial space, which gain a new federal funding pathway to underwrite projects that might otherwise be infeasible.
- Priority populations named for assessment—elderly people, people with disabilities, and veterans—because the mandated report requires HUD to measure impacts on their access to housing, encouraging proposers to serve these groups.
Who Bears the Cost
- HUD, which must design and administer a new competitive program, create guidance for conversions and waivers, and perform the mandated post‑pilot study—adding administrative workload and compliance oversight responsibilities.
- Participating jurisdictions that choose to compete: they must assemble applications, potentially enact enabling ordinances, and absorb pre‑development or matching costs to ready sites for conversion.
- Developers and owners undertaking conversions, who must comply with HOME rental/sale/resale rules and other retained federal requirements (labor, environment) that raise project costs compared with purely market‑rate conversions.
- Local communities facing potential displacement pressures: while the bill targets attainable housing, conversions in Opportunity Zones or gentrifying areas risk driving up local property values without adequate anti‑displacement measures.
- Congressional appropriations stakeholders: the pilot depends on HOME appropriations exceeding a fixed threshold, so its availability effectively competes with other federal priorities for discretionary HOME funding in years when appropriations are tight.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between accelerating conversions of blighted nonresidential buildings to quickly add housing and remove neighborhood blight, and preserving affordability, labor, environmental, and community protections that increase project cost and complexity; the bill gives HUD flexibility to move fast but constrains certain safeguards, leaving policymakers to decide which trade‑offs they accept.
The program hinges on a funding trigger tied to HOME appropriations surpassing $1.35 billion; that design conserves HOME baseline allocations but makes pilot availability unpredictable and dependent on broader appropriations decisions. Because HUD may only use 'excess' HOME funds, the pilot could be dormant in years of constrained appropriations, undermining planning for jurisdictions and developers that might otherwise prepare conversion pipelines.
Definitions and implementation choices carry practical consequences. The statutory definition of 'vacant and abandoned building' focuses on nonresidential structures and local code enforcement findings or courts, but it defers many boundary issues—what qualifies as 'not safe,' how long notice periods must run, and how receivership determinations interact with private liens or contested title.
The waiver authority gives HUD flexibility to reduce procedural friction, but leaving labor, environmental, and fair‑housing protections intact could still leave significant cost and compliance barriers; conversely, excessive waiver use risks undermining community safeguards. Finally, the bill requires HOME program rules for affordability and resale, but those rules were designed around new construction and may not fit the economics or timelines of deep adaptive reuse projects, creating potential tension between statutory affordability controls and project feasibility.
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