Everyone Deserves A Home
(Post 4 of 4 for Affordable Housing)
Hi Project Planning Green Family! This is the last week of us talking about affordable housing and it is a dual release week! This means we are releasing a podcast along with this blog. Scroll down for our podcast or listen to it on your commute, in the doctor’s office, or whenever you get 20 or so minutes. They are not long but they are packed with ideas, perfect for a smarty pants like you :)!
We are going to finish this week’s blog off with some recap and tools that are being used by the government to encourage affordable housing. Here we go!
Recap
The first thing we talked about is the difference between “affordable housing” and “low-income housing” (9/1 Blog). So what is affordable housing? It is housing people can live in by spending no more than 30% of their income on the home. What is low-income housing then? Low-income housing refers to housing built so that people earning less than the median income of their neighborhood can have an affordable home to live in.
We learned in our second blog (9/8 Blog) that affordable housing as an issue is not new. The United States started working on affordable housing-related issues in the 1930s, due to the Great Depression. Based on the data that we have right now, there is a current need for affordable housing and almost half of the renters in the United States live in unaffordable housing.
In the third blog on affordable housing (9/15 Blog), we discussed the various downsides of not having enough affordable housing and why affordable housing is such a prevalent issue now.
If you need a refresher on any of the materials discussed before just scroll down to the bottom of the page and select one of the related blog posts. You can’t miss them!
What Are The Difficulties In Resolving The Affordable Housing Problem?
The affordable housing problem is complex and multi-faceted. So similarly, the solution to it would not be simple. What we can all agree on, is that implementing affordable housing is a tricky business in many places of the United States. This is because of all the different funding streams and the fact that most of them have limited funds available. Since one single funding source usually can’t properly fund an affordable housing project, it usually requires multiple funding sources to be combined to fund a single affordable housing development.
As of today, most affordable housing projects are low-income housing programs. These programs involve governmental action because it does not work naturally in a capitalist market. What does this mean? An affordable housing project is not a sensible project to build for a private investor because it does not maximize available profit and often times cannot cover the cost of the project development and operation itself. Because of this, without government involvement and subsidies, the private market would not provide the amount of affordable housing that is needed in most cities. Studies have shown that most housing development target renters and homeowners that are at the higher end of the market. In contrast, the availability of crucial affordable housing units has decreased in general.
What Are Some Possible Solutions For The Affordable Housing Problem?
There are a few ways to provide assistance to those who cannot afford housing. The most obvious way is to offer lower-income households enough money or subsidies so that they can pay market rate for housing. This applies to both monthly payment subsidies for renters and some form of one time, long-term mortgage programs for homeowners.
Social housing and public housing options are also possible solutions that are implemented across the globe. Social housing is housing complexes that are typically owned and operated by non-profits or the government, or both in combination; usually with the aim to provide affordable housing and alleviate unequal housing conditions. Public housing is provided and managed by the government and is offered to the residents usually at a government determined rate, not at market rate. The availability of public housing is usually run by the idea of “right to housing”, where the public in large believes in the right of quality housing for all.
While providing monetary assistance or straight up housing to renters and developers are some of the ways to provide affordable housing, they are not the only ways to make affordable housing available. The last option I wanted to examine is the option of providing non-monetary incentives for the developers in order to increase the availability of affordable housing. In this scenario, the government would provide incentives such as zoning exceptions to allow developers to build bigger and denser than usual in exchange for a percentage of housing units that will be rented or sold at the low-income housing rate. The government can also offer an expedited approval process for projects that include affordable housing units, making the projects’ approval process faster and easier. These incentives indirectly translate into less hassle or higher profit margins for the developers. At the same time, the government does not need to pay out money or maintain affordable housing developments on their own.
Conclusion
In conclusion, affordable housing is an issue that requires our attention. While it is not an easy problem to resolve there are plenty of tools and solutions available to us, including many that did not get a chance to be explored in our blog today. We have our part 2 podcast on affordable housing below which you should definitely check out.
I wanted to point out there are five Sundays in September so we are going to do a bonus podcast episode this upcoming Sunday before we dig into our October topic, which will be focused on developments near transit stations or the so-called Transit-Oriented Developments.
Also, Christine, the podcast host that you hear in the podcast episodes is going to the She Podcasts Live Conference in Atlanta, Georgia from 10/10 to 10/13. If you are interested in going as well use this referral link here:
She Podcasts Live Conference Referral Link: https://shepodcastsliveatlanta.eventbrite.com/?aff=shepodcastsfriend&afu=31584172742
Using this referral link will help support Project Planning Green, the women podcasts community, and the event itself. Sign up today!
Resources:
- HUD.gov- Affordable Housing: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/comm_planning/affordablehousing/
- HUD.gov- HUD’s Public Housing Program: https://www.hud.gov/topics/rental_assistance/phprog
- HUD.gov- FY 2017 Income Limits- Frequently Asked Questions: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il17/FAQs-17.pdf
- A Brief Historical Overview of Affordable Rental Housing: https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Sec1.03_Historical-Overview_2015.pdf
- The U.S. Has National Shortage of More Than 7.2 Million Affordable And Available Rental Homes For Families Most In Need (April, 2019): https://nlihc.org/news/us-has-national-shortage-more-72-million-affordable-available-rental-homes-families-most-need
- The Gap- A Shortage Of Affordable Homes, 2018: https://reports.nlihc.org/sites/default/files/gap/Gap-Report_2018.pdf
- Rental Burdens: Rethinking Affordability Measures: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_092214.html
- Nearly A Third Of American Households Were Cost-Burdened Last Year (December, 2018): https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/more-than-a-third-of-american-households-were-cost-burdened-last-year/
- Impact of Affordable Housing on Families and Communities: A Review Of The Evidence Base: https://homeforallsmc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Impact-of-Affordable-Housing-on-Families-and-Communities.pdf
- National Low Income Housing Coalition: Out Of Reach 2017: https://reports.nlihc.org/oor/2017
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