(BIVN) – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D, Hawai‘i) put a spotlight on the national housing shortage Wednesday during a speech on the Senate floor. 

Senator Schatz said there is an “urgent need to cut onerous regulations that stand in the way of building more housing”, and said he introduced three bipartisan housing bills this week to help fix the problem. 

“We can and we do disagree about almost everything,” Schatz said. “But on this we should all be able to agree: in the richest country in the history of the world, people should not have to worry about having a roof over their heads. We can fix this, and we must.” 

The proposed bills include the Build More Housing Near Transit Act, which incentivizes local governments to build housing near federally-funded transit projects, and YIMBY Act, which encourages localities to adopt pro-housing policies.

“This crisis was not inevitable,” Schatz said. “It is a problem that the government has created. There is not enough housing in this country because we have made it virtually impossible to build housing. But the good news is this if the government got us into this mess in the first place, it can help to get us out. And mainly that means getting out of our own way and not preventing the very things that we say that we like.” 

Schatz said there is bipartisan blame in the housing crisis, and in his speech noted that “a lot of progressives in my own party like to say we’re for housing, we’re for clean energy, we’re for transit and infrastructure. But you can’t be for something if you don’t want it near you.” 

“There is nothing progressive about preventing a nurse, or a firefighter, or a teacher, or a small business owner from actually living in the community in which they work,” Schatz said. “There is nothing progressive about making people drive an hour to work or in Hawaii, forcing people to leave the state. Lawn sizes and building heights don’t make neighborhoods – people do.” 

“It’s hard to keep any issue out of the partisan crossfire, where everyone retreats to their own corner and starts talking past each other and trying to light the algorithm on fire,” Schatz stated. “Our ability to come together, use common sense, and find a way forward will affect how people live and succeed for generations to come.”