To address the U.S. housing shortage, President Donald Trump has proposed utilizing a portion of the 650 million acres of federal land for new housing development.

What Happened: The Trump administration is setting up a task force to locate federal land that could potentially be used for affordable housing development. The task force will be co-managed by the Interior Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The initiative’s goal is to open up large areas of federal land by transferring or leasing it to local governments for housing development, as detailed by The Wall Street Journal.

The American Enterprise Institute conducted a preliminary analysis, which indicated that the development of 512,000 acres of the Bureau of Land Management’s lots could result in the construction of three to four million new homes across western states like Nevada, Utah, California, and Arizona.

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Despite potential obstacles such as local infrastructure and zoning laws, logistical and environmental issues, and opposition from residents, the task force aims to identify suitable land parcels and transfer or lease them to public housing authorities, nonprofits, or local governments for home development.

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, voiced his support for the initiative, saying, “Freeing up federal land for more housing—I think it’s a good idea.”

That being said, there can be several obstacles to building houses on government land. Pete Carroll, the head of public policy and industry-relations research at CoreLogic cautioned, "There's plenty of land, no doubt, but the trick is releasing the right land in the right places.”

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.