Helena Foulkes, candidate for Governor, rolls out her housing plan for Rhode Island

Proposed Millionaire’s Tax to build 20,000 new Homes and apartments

Housing is too expensive in Rhode Island, and it is holding our state back. One third of Rhode Island households are paying more than one third of their income toward housing costs.  We need results-focused leadership to build more homes and apartments that people can afford. Helena Buonanno Foulkes today released her housing plan designed to build more homes of all kinds, lower the cost of owning and renting, and protect tenants from being taken advantage of. 

“When I talk to Rhode Islanders, they tell me how much they love living here, but I also hear that the cost of buying or renting is making it harder and harder to stay,” said Helena. “Housing in Rhode Island costs too much because we lack adequate supply, and under this governor we’re 50th in the nation in new home starts. I will be a governor who will get shovels in the ground to build tens of thousands of new homes and apartments that Rhode Islanders can afford.” 

Recent reporting found that there is no community in Rhode Island where it is affordable to buy a home. The primary driver of the skyrocketing cost of housing is inadequate supply. Experts project that Rhode Island needs to add tens of thousands of new units for supply to catch up to demand. The General Assembly has done great work on housing in recent years, but what has been missing is executive leadership. Rhode Island still ranks 50th in the country in housing starts. Last year, Rhode Island added fewer than 1,000 new housing units, and the governor’s $120 million bond to address the housing crisis is expected to result in only 600 additional homes. 

Given the magnitude of the housing crisis, Helena Buonanno Foulkes is proposing an “all-of-the-above” plan to build thousands of homes and apartments quickly: dedicated funding, smart investments, less red tape, and a governor focused on making Rhode Island more affordable for everyone. 

The Rhode Home Program consists of: 

A Millionaire’s Tax for Housing

Last summer, Congress passed and President Trump signed a budget that drastically cuts the social safety net in favor of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. Every millionaire in Rhode Island benefited from this ill-advised federal tax giveaway. Against this backdrop, Helena is proposing a millionaire’s tax to establish a billion-dollar fund to build 20,000 homes and apartments that Rhode Islanders can afford. Specifically, the plan calls for an additional 3% income tax on incomes of $1 million and above. Within eight years, the fund will have generated over a billion dollars, which will be used to leverage private, federal and philanthropic dollars to construct over 20,000 homes. 

The Rhode Home Program: A Revolving Loan Fund for New Housing

Revenue from the millionaire’s tax will be allocated to a revolving loan fund that will provide capital to homebuilding projects and recoup its investment from rents or sales once construction completes and those projects come online. This will make Rhode Island an attractive place to build, generate thousands of new homes and apartments, and will replenish the fund so that the completion of each new development makes more resources available for additional, future construction. In addition to new housing developments and apartment buildings, the Rhode Home Program will fund:

• Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs): The General Assembly has made great progress in making it easier to permit and build ADUs. Rhode Home dollars will finance these projects and recoup the investment from rents after the projects are constructed.
• Revamping the Historic Tax Credit: Rhode Island’s gorgeous historic buildings are an asset that we will put to use by restoring the historic tax credit and incentivizing developers to turn vacant or run-down historic buildings into beautiful, functional homes and apartments.
• Low-Cost Construction Using Modular Materials: Reducing the cost of housing means reducing the cost of construction. There are cutting-edge firms working to design homes with manufactured modular components, prefabricated materials, or 3D printing—using economies of scale to keep construction costs low.
• Rent Relief: Too many Rhode Islanders are struggling to make ends meet now. The Rhode Home Program will set aside dollars for immediate rent support for families in need who cannot wait years for prices to come down to afford housing now. This funding will decrease as rents come down and supply comes online.  

A Constitutionally Protected Fund

The Rhode Home Program’s revolving loan fund will generate over a billion dollars. In order to ensure that those dollars are protected for the sake of building homes and apartments for Rhode Islanders, Helena is proposing a constitutional amendment to protect it. 

Make RI a Hub of the Emerging Modular Home Manufacturing Industry

In addition to using the revolving load fund to encourage housing developments with modular construction and prefabricated materials, Helena will also work to recruit modular home manufacturing companies to locate their operations in Rhode Island, bringing a growing industry and good-paying manufacturing jobs, and making the Ocean State the hub of modular home building in New England. 

Cutting Red Tape, Lowering Costs, and Building More Housing

In order to build over 20,000 homes and apartments that Rhode Islanders can afford, we will need to take an all-of-the-above approach. To that end, the Foulkes Administration will work to:

• Streamline administrative approval processes and cut red tape to remove barriers to building
• Focus the efforts and resources of the revolving loan fund on the communities that want to partner to build
• Make use of idle state-owned properties by making them available for housing construction
• Fight to repeal President Trump’s disastrous tariffs, which are increasing building costs by an estimated $10,000 per unit
• Ensure homes are available for Rhode Islanders, not Wall Street, by limiting investors’ ability to speculatively buy up residential properties
• Protect renters by holding bad landlords accountable, protecting tenants’ rights, and requiring full rental fee transparency

Helena’s full housing plan is available here.