The time has come to renew an ancient American promise. The promise that land, labor, and liberty, when joined with sweat and perseverance, can make a free people prosperous and proud. President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have the opportunity to revive the most transformative social compact in American history: the Homestead Act. First signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, the original act gave away federal land to citizens who were willing to develop and live on it. It was not merely a land policy. It was a moral wager on the strength of American character. Today, we face a different geography, a different economy, and a different kind of pioneer. But the logic remains. The federal government sits atop vast swaths of underutilized land, while millions of American families are locked out of the dream of homeownership by artificial scarcity, bloated zoning codes, and the metastasizing costs of urban living. A Homestead Act for 2025 would correct that imbalance and give Americans a stake in their nation’s physical future.
Secretary Burgum has already shown a willingness to lead this effort. In March 2025, he co-authored an op-ed with HUD Secretary Scott Turner announcing a Joint Task Force on Federal Land for Housing, aimed at identifying underutilized federal lands suitable for residential development. Burgum has also spoken favorably of proposals like Senator Mike Lee’s plan to dispose of 0.5 to 0.75 percent of Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service lands, an estimated 2 to 3 million acres, for housing and infrastructure. During a Senate hearing, he described these parcels as “barren land next to highways with existing billboards that have no recreational value,” making clear that not all federal land is sacred or untouchable. His remarks in meetings with Utah Governor Spencer Cox further reinforce his commitment to coordinating with states to expand housing access through targeted land transfers.
Consider the crisis. Median home prices in metropolitan centers like San Francisco, Boston, and New York have soared beyond the reach of even high-earning middle-class families. According to Redfin, the median home price in California now exceeds $830,000, while the average monthly mortgage payment on a 30-year loan at current rates surpasses $4,500. More than 19 million households are cost-burdened, spending over 30 percent of their income on housing. These are not just numbers. These are the preconditions of national decline, where working families are priced out of prosperity and young Americans delay marriage, family, and independence not by choice, but by economic coercion.
Meanwhile, millions of acres of federally controlled land lie dormant. The Bureau of Land Management alone oversees more than 245 million acres, much of it arid but viable with the right technology. Much of it rests near existing infrastructure. Even in western states where population is growing, these lands remain off-limits, protected not by genuine ecological concern but by bureaucratic inertia and faux-environmentalist ideology funded by progressive interest groups. Land is hoarded while housing is denied. That moral inversion is what the Homestead Act of 2025 must correct.
Let it be stated plainly: this land would not be available for BlackRock to scoop up in corporate bulk buys. It would not be available for Chinese nationals to purchase for clandestine activities or strategic espionage. It would not be converted into data centers or warehouse compounds. It would be reserved exclusively for American citizens and legal residents willing to live, work, and build on it. Nor would it endanger national treasures. Scenic areas, recreational zones, and lands of environmental significance would be explicitly off-limits. What is on offer are the forgotten fringes, barren parcels already flanked by highways, abandoned lots that neither serve man nor nature. The only thing these lands currently cultivate is dust. We can do better.
Lincoln’s Homestead Act gave away land not as charity, but as a challenge. Claimants had to live on the land, build a home, and improve it. They had to prove their worth. This was a covenant, not a subsidy. And that same spirit must animate the modern version. But where Lincoln’s homesteaders relied on sod and sweat, ours would wield Starlink, solar panels, and digitally managed water wells. The modern homesteader is a software engineer in Nevada, a nurse practitioner in Utah, or a veteran returning to build a ranch in New Mexico. They are not seeking handouts. They are asking to be unshackled from the failures of a market distorted by government red tape and anti-growth orthodoxy.
The Homestead Act of 2025 would grant eligible Americans the right to claim 40, 100, or even 250 acres of public land, depending on intended use and local feasibility. To secure title, claimants would need to live on the land for five years, reside there at least 75 percent of each calendar year, and develop a habitable structure using renewable energy and sustainable practices. Internet access, via Starlink or other providers, would be mandatory, not optional. The goal is not to strand settlers in the wilderness, but to equip them to build 21st-century communities, self-governing and networked. Low-interest federal loans would support infrastructure buildouts, including water wells, septic systems, and solar installations.
Critics will ask: but won’t this harm the environment? In truth, it is the bloated cities that do the damage. Sprawl without purpose, density without dignity. The modern homesteading model requires that settlement be responsible, resilient, and regenerative. Solar power, composting, smart water management, and shared resource cooperatives are not bugs of this proposal, they are features. And unlike the top-down eco-utopianism peddled by urban elites, homesteading is a voluntary and bottom-up solution.
Nor is this just about housing. It is about national character. Americans have become dangerously alienated from the land that bore them. When citizens become renters not just of homes but of entire regions, when they are tethered to coastal megalopolises governed by disconnected technocrats, they lose something essential. The Homestead Act of 2025 would revive civic independence and renew geographic balance. It would seed new towns, rebuild rural economies, and make federalism tangible again.
The critics will protest. They will say this is unrealistic, that Americans will not leave cities for distant counties in Nevada or Wyoming. But the data tell a different story. Since 2020, millions have fled cities. The rise of remote work, the collapse of public safety, and the politicization of everything from school boards to utility bills has convinced many Americans that they are living as strangers in enemy territory. The Homestead Act of 2025 offers a structured exodus, not a chaotic retreat.
Moreover, this is not the first time the US government has looked west in pursuit of renewal. Reagan understood this. When he spoke of America as a shining city on a hill, he summoned not just religious imagery but a deeply Jeffersonian idea of freedom as tied to place. Jefferson himself wrote, “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens.” It was not metaphor. He believed in the civilizing effect of ownership, of independence, of being rooted in the soil of one’s country. Today, that soil lies fallow. But it need not remain so.
This is not a utopian plan. Not every claim will succeed. But failure is part of the moral ecology of freedom. What matters is not perfect outcomes, but the restoration of a pathway by which Americans can again become stakeholders in their nation’s physical future. There is honor in trying. And there is dignity in building.
President Trump and Secretary Burgum have before them a chance to redeem and modernize a great national tradition. They should seize it. We do not need another housing program that subsidizes developers and fattens bureaucracies. We need a revolution in land ownership and civic independence. A million families, a million homesteads, a million new beginnings. That is a legacy worthy of history.
If you enjoy my work, please consider subscribing: https://x.com/amuse.
Sponsored by the John Milton Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping independent journalists overcome formidable challenges in today’s media landscape and bring crucial stories to you.
READ NEXT: Anti-Gun Researchers Busted — ‘Scary’ Study Off By 7,000%
Sponsored
Stuck in a Tough Spot? What Would History’s Greatest Leaders Do? Victor Davis Hanson Has the Answer
Until all illegal aliens are removed from the U.S., I would not be in favor of offering such an opportunity. I would love to see it happen for my children’s and grandchildren’s sake. But, this has to be an AMERICA FIRST program, period!!!!!
I like the premise, but wonder about the abuse of the system. Maybe the people in these areas don’t want more people to move there and turn it into what they left ? I worry about the wording of this act and what defines this “barren land”? What happens to the recreation possibilities? What is considered existing infrastructure, an old dirt road 2 tire tracks wide?
Where do I sign up?
Can’t wait to get out of California