the Oasis

At the federal level, Republicans are making housing a major talking point. At the state level in South Carolina, it’s a much different story. And one leaving Democrats’ ideas in the dark.

By Scott Morgan, Managing Editor
Jan 14, 2026

Housing used to be a beat no one would touch.

If there was coverage in the press about housing, at all, it almost certainly had to do with the markets. Sales trends. Developments. Sales of gigantic homes for gigantic prices.

Housing now is a mainstream conversation, and reporters line up to tell stories. Many of them good. Too many of them not.

But talking is the first step, and it’s working to get people and their elected officials thinking about housing in terms of real solutions.

The conversation has gotten on the minds of so many Americans, in fact, that Pew Research Center reported overwhelming bipartisan support for more affordable housing in 2024.

And policies to address housing are showing up in legislative sessions. The South Carolina Legislature is back to close its two-year cycle, and since January of 2025, at least 28 bills addressing housing insecurity have been introduced in the Statehouse; 22 of them in the House of Representatives.

Here’s the thing, though: Only one party is doing most of the filing.

Almost every one of the bills that focus on housing affordability in the state Legislature this round was filed by Democrats, and almost every one of these bills is hung up in committee, which effectively means they’re dead. 

There are some great ideas in these bills. There are ones that would allow churches and nonprofit organizations to build affordable housing on their own properties without losing their tax-exempt status; mandatory remediation for low-income renters displaced by gentrification; allowing housing authorities to have representatives in magistrate (eviction) courts (where corporate entities, like landlords, are already allowed to have representatives); the waiving of impact fees for developers who want to build at least 15% affordable housing; and ending housing discrimination based on disabilities or source of income.

In South Carolina, Democrats are onto something vital to the conversation about housing stability – that it’s got much more to it than the price of rent alone.

Housing stability also has to do with utilities and energy, it has to do with access, it has to do with healthcare. All these topics are the subjects of bills filed by South Carolina Democrats, and all of them are languishing in committee in a Republican-dominant Legislature that has not made housing sustainability in the state much of a priority.

Only one bill focusing on affordable housing made it to the governor’s desk this legislative session, and it has to do with building affordable homes on military installations – needed, but extremely specific. That bill was championed by Republicans and signed into law last year.

At the state level, South Carolina Republicans have approved financing and programs to buoy the state Housing and Finance Authority, which, in turn, fosters affordable housing initiatives.

But state GOP lawmakers are showing little interest in discussing the core issues lying below the surface of housing sustainability.

Meanwhile, at the federal level, Sen. Tim Scott, (R-SC) is the architect of the disappointingly weakened ROAD Act – which was supposed to help more American get access to homebuying but ended up getting gutted and tacked onto the National Defense Authorization Act – and of the equally disappointing Opportunity Zones legislation, which promises investment amid urban deterioration but instead has become a form of corporate welfare.

Both these bills are signature pieces for Scott. And although they failed to be what they were promised, Scott has made housing a priority of his time in office. 

And then, of course, there is President Donald Trump, who talks a lot about housing affordability. Trump has floated such ideas as 50-year mortgages – which has such the potential to keep people in debt for so long that even members of the Republican party hate it intensely – to forcing the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates – which even Wall Street expects would backfire.

But Trump has also spoken of banning institutional investors (i.e., private equity) from buying single-family homes and he wants the federal government to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds as a way to bring down interest rates for homeowners. These two ideas have much more broad support and are seen as someone doing, at least, something.

I can’t say whether either of these approaches would work.

I can say that cutting competition from institutional investors is only part of the problem the president is trying to address with a private equity.

My point is, at the federal level, even if the efforts to address housing security and affordability are clumsy swings with heavy clubs, Republicans are talking about housing attainability as a crisis. In South Carolina, state-level Republicans are talking about housing in terms of availability, the mantra being ‘build more houses,’ without acknowledging that supply is not the only answer. 

Because it’s not the only question.

State-level Republicans are simply not talking about the root causes of housing insecurity – debt, financial illiteracy, lack of adequate transportation, a diminishing number of residents who have insurance, and so on.

Worse, they don’t even seem to be listening. I’m not sure why. But I am sure that trying to solve a problem as complicated as housing insecurity by coming at it from one direction only is not going to solve anything.

Note: This editorial was shortened from its original length, to remove redundant wording.

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