---
kind: "section"
citation: "42 U.S.C. § 12702"
title: "42"
title_heading: "The Public Health and Welfare"
number: "12702"
heading: "Objective of national housing policy"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/42/12702"
units:
  - "Chapter 130 — National Affordable Housing"
  - "Subchapter I — General Provisions and Policies"
---

# §12702. Objective of national housing policy


The objective of national [housing](/usc/42/12704.md?p=8) policy shall be to reaffirm the long-established national commitment to decent, safe, and sanitary [housing](/usc/42/12704.md?p=8) for every American by strengthening a nationwide partnership of public and private institutions able—

- (1) to ensure that every resident of the United States has access to decent shelter or assistance in avoiding homelessness;
- (2) to increase the Nation’s supply of decent [housing](/usc/42/12704.md?p=8) that is affordable to low-income and moderate-income [families](/usc/42/12704.md?p=11) and accessible to job opportunities;
- (3) to improve [housing](/usc/42/12704.md?p=8) opportunities for all residents of the United States, particularly members of disadvantaged minorities, on a nondiscriminatory basis;
- (4) to help make neighborhoods safe and livable;
- (5) to expand opportunities for homeownership;
- (6) to provide every American community with a reliable, readily available supply of mortgage finance at the lowest possible interest rates; and
- (7) to encourage tenant empowerment and reduce generational poverty in federally assisted and public [housing](/usc/42/12704.md?p=8) by improving the means by which self-sufficiency may be achieved.

## Source credit

(Pub. L. 101–625, title I, § 102, Nov. 28, 1990, 104 Stat. 4085.)