HUD Awards $450 Million for Mass Timber Sustainable Affordable Housing Across Twenty Cities

WASHINGTON — Acting Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Adrianne Todman announced on Monday the distribution of $450 million in capital development grants from the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP) to finance the engineering and construction of more than 6,000 energy-efficient, multi-family affordable housing units utilizing advanced Mass Timber and Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) framing across twenty metropolitan housing authorities.

The initiative, delivered in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, supports the construction of 6- to 12-story residential apartment buildings that replace carbon-intensive steel and concrete with sustainably harvested, fire-rated domestic mass timber panels.

Scaling Affordable Housing While Decarbonizing the Built Environment Traditional concrete and steel building construction accounts for nearly 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Mass timber structures sequester atmospheric carbon within timber panels, provide superior acoustic insulation, and reduce on-site construction timelines by up to 35 percent through factory-manufactured modular prefabrication.

"America is facing an affordable housing shortage and a climate challenge, and mass timber allows us to address both simultaneously," Acting HUD Secretary Adrianne Todman said during an announcement in Atlanta. "These $450 million investments will construct thousands of beautiful, healthy, and climate-resilient affordable homes for working families, while creating sustainable manufacturing jobs in our domestic forestry and timber communities."

Selected Municipal Housing Authorities Funded Major grant allocations include:

• Atlanta Housing Authority (Georgia): $40 million to construct a 10-story mass timber mixed-income community with 380 units.
• Seattle Housing Authority (Washington): $38 million for cross-laminated timber workforce housing near light rail transit.
• Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (Minnesota): $35 million for energy-efficient timber passive-house apartments.
• Philadelphia Housing Authority (Pennsylvania): $32 million for modular timber walk-up townhomes in North Philadelphia.
• Sixteen additional housing authorities in California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Oregon receiving between $15 million and $28 million.

Architects, structural engineers, and affordable housing developers commended HUD's targeted funding, highlighting that prefabricated timber panels significantly compress construction schedules and lower operational utility costs for low-income tenants.