Policy

(Note: For details on specific funding sources, see Finance Strategies section.)

Integrate Housing into all Planning Efforts

Housing is not an isolated issue. It is fundamental to the health of both families and communities.  Affordable housing should be considered in all aspects of local and regional planning:

• A comprehensive housing survey should be undertaken regularly, perhaps as part of a master plan. This should include assisted and unassisted housing, the segments of the market, and projected needs. See Community Mapping tool.
• Transportation should be considered in planning housing, and vice versa. Proximity to transportation to jobs, child care, and retail makes an affordable housing development even more valuable to its residents.  Isolated housing can turn out to be less affordable than it seems if the transportation limitations require the purchase of car or limit job options.
• Open space should also be considered as part of housing plans and vice versa, rather than making them competing land uses. In Vermont, a joint housing and open space fund has gone a long way to linking these two uses.

Bring Operating Subsidies to Scale

As of 1999 there were 4.9 million households in the United States with "worst case housing needs." (This figure does not include the homeless.) In 1999 there were only 40 affordable and available units per 100 extremely-low-income households. In the worsening economy, these numbers are likely to be much higher. And yet, fewer than one out of four households that are eligible for federal rental assistance receive it. Families must often wait years for Section 8 assistance. To really address the affordable housing crisis, operating subsidies such as Section 8 should be increased to at least the ballpark of the scale of the problem.

It seems unlikely, however, that there is currently the political will for such a huge increase in low-income housing subsidies, meaning that state, local, or private funding sources may need to step up to the plate.  One equity argument to remember is that the wealthy receive billions of dollars of housing subsidy every year in the form of the Mortgage Interest Deduction, dwarfing the assistance given to low-income people.

Make Resident-Controlled Housing an Option

Housing is for many people more than a place to live. It is a foundation for community building and a financial asset. Resident-controlled housing, including forms of multi-family ownership, provides wealth creation, skill building, and community stability. It empowers residents, creating a truly accountable and bottom-up approach to community development.

Despite these many advantages, resident-controlled development remains relatively uncommon.  Funders and policymakers are not familiar with what it requires, and there often are not provisions for it in policies designed to support nonprofit development.

Tenant co-operative ownership, mutual housing, and community land trusts should be explicitly included as acceptable uses under all funding programs for low-income housing, such as Housing Trust Funds, and all municipal land-disposition programs that have a nonprofit or affordable housing option or preference.

Support Permanency

Local housing markets and the economy at large are constantly changing, but the need for affordable housing has never gone away.  In fact, neighborhood improvement and rising prices often make it even more crucial.  Meanwhile, as Section 8 and other federal subsidy contracts have come up for renewal over the past decade, there has been a dramatic loss of affordable housing as owners opt out.

To ensure long-term housing affordability and neighborhood stability, affordable housing programs should give preference to models that will ensure permanent affordability through either nonprofit ownership or resident-ownership/control.  In all cases, permanent, or at-least long-term, affordability restrictions should be attached to the deed and the financing.

Bring in the Private Sector

Although they operate more or less independently, developers and financial institutions are both recipients of public support.  Developers benefit from public infrastructure and services, zoning variances, and more. Financial institutions are supported by FDIC guarantees.  Therefore, the community can and should call upon these industries to give back to the communities they benefit from.

The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, provides a vehicle for holding financial institutions accountable for providing mortgage loans and other investment in the neighborhoods from which they draw deposits. In the process, many of them have found that it is a lucrative untapped market. CRA has been weakened over the past several years, but should be strengthened again.

Housing developers can increase the amount of affordable housing though inclusionary zoning programs. Commercial developers can remedy the effects of their developments on the jobs-housing balance through linkage fees. Incorporating affordable housing development and funding into the everyday functioning of the development world reduces overhead, increases economic integration, and spreads the burden.

Create a Fair-Housing Climate

Stable and affordable housing is impossible if tenants aren't protected from eviction in favor of higher paying tenants, overcharges, or dangerous or uninhabitable conditions.  In situations where basic tenants rights are not enforced, income eligibility restrictions, rent or conversion regulations, and other affordable housing provisions are also likely to be appealed or circumvented. Strong and well-enforced tenants rights laws and fair housing statutes will create a climate much less friendly to displacement.

Regulate the Existing Market

Although it's a political challenge, regulating the private housing market at the local level can have more widely applicable effects than any other strategy. (See full Toolset description.)