Three bills expected to be filed by GOP lawmakers to address KY’s housing needs
Three bills expected to be filed in the Kentucky legislature all aim to increase affordable housing options, the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky said Tuesday.
The three bills would include one that would allow Kentucky’s religious institutions to put affordable housing units on their property, another to expunge the records of those who have been evicted and one to increase fees that support the state’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund may be filed soon.
The still-to-be-filed bills aim to close the state’s affordable housing gap, improve access to affordable housing and create a better foundation for Kentucky to continue its trajectory of positive economic development, lawmakers said Jan. 13.
All three proposals are backed by a statewide coalition of advocates working to end homelessness and create increased opportunities for affordable housing access.
In a press conference outside the Capitol Annex Tuesday morning, the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky — the group backing the three proposals and other housing-related legislation — said after two years of the Kentucky Housing Task Force doing research on the topic, there’s now research and data to show Kentucky needs more houses.
“Here in the legislature, we’ve been studying housing for the last two years … we’ve been doing the work with many of you to make sure that we know the facts,” said Senate Majority Caucus Chair Robby Mills, R-Henderson, who serves as co-chair of the task force. “We have two very good reports, annual reports on housing, that validate the fact that we need more housing in the state of Kentucky.”
The task force’s report following four meetings during the interim includes several policy recommendations for regulatory reforms and state-funded support. The three housing bills slated to be filed by members of the task force in the coming days mirror some of the language from the list of recommendations.
While a one-time investment repeatedly proposed by Democrats to the state’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund adds resources for developers, nonprofits and local governments to use, housing advocates said their focus is on increasing the already collected fees to create a sustainable and more modern funding structure.
The Affordable Housing Trust Fund gives grants and loans to nonprofits and developers to create housing for low-income Kentucky residents. Money from the fund, which is managed by the Kentucky Housing Corp., comes from a fee on real estate transactions, state appropriations, tax credits and bonds, federal grants and private sources.
Rep. Susan Witten, R-Louisville, said she would file legislation to nearly triple the fees on real estate transactions that go into the fund from $12 to $36, which could result in the state adding 600 housing units every year. Rep. Steve Bratcher, R-Elizabethtown, and Witten sponsored a similar bill last session that was never heard in committee.
Bratcher said Kentucky has been moving in the right direction economically with an increase in population and industry, but that kind of growth has put a strain on the housing market.
“It also has inflated the prices of housing, too, to where people that have sustainable jobs and are doing the right things can’t afford a house,” Bratcher said. “... You’re ready to buy a house, but you can’t buy a house because there’s no houses available. We want to change that. We want to be able to continue to grow this affordable housing trust fund to create a supply side intervention.”
In his State of the Commonwealth and budget address last week, Gov. Andy Beshear said he wanted to put a one-time investment of $150 million into Kentucky’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Matched with private dollars, his administration predicted the money could create more than $1 billion dollar’s worth of new housing across the state.
Witten also said Tuesday she would file a bill that would remove dismissed evictions from someone’s record. Allowing Kentuckians to have evictions expunged could open up housing options, she said.
Rep. Michael Sarge Pollock, R-Campbellsville, said his House Bill 333 would let the state’s religious institutions bypass local planning and zoning rules to put affordable housing on property it owns so long as a local body approves of the project.
Most housing proposals filed during the 2025 session quietly died, especially those sponsored by Democrats, including a policy that would have limited how many homes real estate investors can acquire and another that would have put more money into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Another bill that would have allowed religious institutions to put affordable housing units on their property stalled in the House, though it had bipartisan support.
This session though, is a starting point, said George Eklund, director of education and advocacy at the Coalition for the Homeless in Louisville. Advocates and lawmakers know where at least half of the puzzle pieces are, he said, the rest of the work lies in putting them together.
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