WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced new steps to increase access to affordable housing as still-high prices on groceries and other necessities and high interest rates have dramatically pushed up the cost of living in the post- pandemic years.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen promoted the new investments Monday during a visit to Minneapolis. The investments include providing $100 million through a new fund over the next three years to support affordable housing financing, boosting the Federal Financing Bank’s financing of affordable housing and other measures.

“We face a very significant housing supply shortfall that has been building for a long time,” Yellen said. “This supply crunch has led to an affordability crunch.”

Yellen said the Democratic administration is “pursuing a broad affordability agenda to address the price pressures that families have been feeling.”

Homebuyers and renters are facing increasing housing costs that skyrocketed after the pandemic. According to the Case- Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index, home prices increased by 46% between March 2020 and March 2024. A new Treasury analysis shows that over the past two decades, housing costs have been rising faster than incomes.

Meanwhile, sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in May for the third straight month.

In her speech, Yellen called on Congress to pass President Joe Biden’s proposed budget, released in March.

The budget calls on Congress to provide a tax credit for first-time homebuyers and includes a plan to build more than 2 million homes. It would expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.

The Biden administration has taken other steps to boost the housing supply, including launching a multiagency effort to encourage states and cities to convert more empty office buildings into housing units, with billions of federal dollars available to help spur such transitions.