For Low-Income Renters, the Affordable Housing Gap Persists (citylab.com)

March 14, 2018                               By: Alicia Doktor

Finding affordable housing isn’t getting any easier for the more than a quarter of U.S. renters that are extremely low-income. For six years, the National Low Income Housing Coalition has released an annual report calculating the discrepancy between available affordable housing units and renters who earn below the poverty line or 30 percent of the area median. Last year, they found that for every 100 households categorized as extremely low income (ELI), only 35 affordable rental homes are available—a shortage of over 7 million affordable and available homes. That same figure stands today.

Part of this shortage is caused by an influx of higher income households into more affordable homes: Almost half of the affordable rental units are occupied by families that earn above the poverty line. As incomes get higher, cumulative shortages get less pronounced. Households that earn less than 50 percent AMI have 56 affordable and available rental homes; those below 80 percent have 93.....................................Read More

Want Affordable Housing? Just Build More Of It

March 14, 2018                          By:  Noah Smith

Urban California should emulate Tokyo, which ensured the supply of dwellings stayed ahead of population growth.

After years of dithering and hoping the problem would go away, California is finally taking steps to address its housing crisis. In 2017 the state passed a series of billsdesigned to encourage the construction of new affordable housing -- streamlining the regulatory approval process, providing more state funding and cracking down on local governments that fall short of their housing goals. Now, state Senator Scott Wiener is pushing a new more aggressive package of legislation.

Build up, not out.     Photographer: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/UIG/Getty Images

The most dramatic change Weiner would make, which is similar to a parallel effort in the state assembly, would be to force cities to allow dense housing development near public transit. This is a great idea to help poor Californians, since lower-income people are more likely to use transit, and are the ones suffering the most from the housing shortage. Sadly, the bill is already encountering opposition from homeowners’ groups, which are no doubt eager to push up their property values. It is also receiving pushback from the Sierra Club, which offered the tortured rationale that allowing dense housing near public transit would cause political support for transit to drop. Other opponents claim that allowing new development would raise rents -- a dubious assertion that is theoretically possible, but highly unlikely...................Read More

With U.S. affordable housing in crisis, Trump admin wants to cut aid

March 13, 2018                               By: Patrick Sisson

The Gap, a new report by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, illustrates depth of affordable housing crisis

For many low-income Americans, a safe and affordable home is becoming increasingly hard to find. According to The Gap, a new report from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) released earlier today, at a time when more and more Americans are burdened with above-average housing costs, the Trump administration seeks to cut federal programs that provide housing assistance and support and strengthen public housing infrastructure.

According to author Andrew Aurand, the NLIHC’s vice president for research, the problem has gotten worse over the last decade. The shortage of affordable rental units has increased from 5.8 to 7.2 million, and a larger percentage of the growing rental population can be considered extremely low-income renters.

Nationwide, 8 million Americans pay more than half their income on rent each month. To place it in perspective, of every 100 rental units nationwide, only 35 are available or affordable to extremely low-income renters (defined as households with incomes at or below the Poverty Guideline or 30% of area median income, whichever is higher). That number gets lower in many metros areas in the south and west.......................Read More

Detroit to boost low-income housing with $250M fund

March 12, 2018                      By: Nicquel Terry, The Detroit News

Detroit — City officials have rolled out a plan to create a $250 million fund that would allow them to preserve 10,000 affordable housing units and develop 2,000 more in the next five years.

Detroiter Stella Buchanan is pleased to be able to live downtown, with some help from the city. Detroit Director of Housing and Revitalization Arthur Jamison talks about the city's plan to preserve and develop affordable housing units. Daniel Mears, The Detroit News

"The preservation and creation of affordable housing is the cornerstone of our growth strategy,” said Mayor Mike Duggan, who first announced the multifamily affordable housing plan during his state of the city speech last week.

"Affordable housing offers stability for the city’s low-income residents and provides options to households at a range of incomes in all neighborhoods. This is what we are talking about when we say that we are building one city for all of us.”.............Read More

It's Time to Take a Stand for Affordable Housing

February 28, 2018                            By:  Stephen Whyte

Remember Archie Bunker? Not really? That’s ok – it’s an old reference. Archie Bunker was the protagonist of the hit 70s sitcom “All in the Family.” As the name implies, he was a family man – hard working, gruff, charming and bigoted in a way that wouldn’t fly on television today.

But that’s not the only thing about Archie that doesn’t stand the test of time. Because in the 1970s, on his salary as a New York loading dock foreman, Archie and his family rented a home in Flushing, Queens. In today’s world, that math doesn’t work. Archie would earn a salary of roughly $50,000 per year – enough to realistically afford a rent of about $1,250 per month. The Bunker’s home would rent for at least twice that. And don’t get me started on the rent-controlled fantasies of “Friends” or “Seinfeld.”

That’s a lot of talk about long-gone television, but it demonstrates a very real problem. A nationwide crisis that, in my 25 years in affordable housing development, I have seen grow from a conversation into a full-blown national crisis........Read More

Affordable housing advocacy group wants to make it a campaign issue

March 1, 2018                                   By: Patrick Sisson

Despite the country’s continuing rental affordability crisis, housing was never brought up during the three main debates of the 2016 presidential election.

This year, a new coalition of housing groups and non-profits wants to make sure affordable housing becomes a focus of the midterm political debate.

Shutterstock

Via a series of promotions and videos, as well as a feature-length documentary coming out this fall, the Home1 advocacy campaign seeks to sound a clear warning about the scope of this problem and make this “silent crisis” part of the larger debate.

According to Stephen Whyte, founder and managing director of Vitus, an affordable housing developer and member of Home1, the organization doesn’t have any particular policy proposals. It’s just pushing for general support of existing housing solutions, funding for more affordable housing, and getting the message out to the public and politicians........................Read More

Report: Thousands of Affordable Units Could Go Market-Rate as Tax Credit Deals Lapse

March 1, 2018                                     By: Jarrett Murphy

A new set of threats to affordable housing is looming in New York City, thanks to the Trump administration, the real-estate market and time itself, according to a report released Thursday by the Community Service Society.

Data from CSS/Chart by City Limits

The administration’s proposed cuts to the Section 8 program could cost the city tens of thousands of the federal vouchers that make the math of affordable housing work for many low-income families. And the expiration of affordability agreements tied to Low-Income Housing Tax Credits could mean thousands of other units end up on the open market, with the Trump tax cuts making it harder to issue new credits that close the gap.

Those worries add to existing concerns about Mitchell-Lama developments and project-based Section 8 buildings going market rate. Nearly a third of the 119,000 units in those programs shed their affordability restrictions between 1990 and 2008.............Read More