The Roosevelt Institution

Affordable Housing

By Kai H Stinchcombe
Categories: Economic policy, Poverty and social justice, Urban policy

The Challenge: ensure every American has access to housing they can afford.

Important

Progressive: accomplishing this challenge will contribute directly and specifically to the progressive values embodied by Roosevelt's Statement of Principles

Meaningful: our contribution to this challenge will produce a real change in the lives of our fellow human beings. One can imagine a world in which the challenge is solved, and such a world is better than the one we live in today.

Relevant: the challenge is relevant to the social contract project that Roosevelt has embarked upon

The Roosevelt Statement of Principles states that in the type of society we are trying to build, everyone must have a decent standard of living, including a good home. The loss of homeownership (in the form of foreclosures and "Hoovervilles") was one of the main impetuses for FDR's New Deal.

According to the City Mayors' Society:

The United States government defines affordable housing as housing for which the owner or tenant pays 30 per cent or less of his or her income. Using this standard, the National Low Income Housing Coalition calculates that nearly 95 million Americans - 35 per cent of US households - have a housing affordability problem.

Rising housing costs have created a housing shortage not only for lower-income groups that traditionally face housing challenges � people with disabilities, those in transition, and immigrant families � but also for teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, and other moderate-income workers.

American cities are at the center of the crisis. Eighty per cent of the 1,000 large and small American cities surveyed by the National League for Cities in 2007 reported that rising housing costs are putting a severe strain on families. For example, Chicago (Population: 2.9m) identified an immediate need of at least 200,000 affordable units; Minneapolis, Minnesota (Population: 383.000) over 50,000 units; and Lodi, California (Population 67,000) 8000 units.

Housing is the largest expense most families face and it is increasingly out of reach. Our communities must come together and respond to this challenge.

Innovative

We're looking for policy challenges where innovation is needed: where there isn't already a clear solution or best practices, but solutions can be developed creatively. Our goal is to develop options, not to lobby or advocate for a solution that is already known or to debate among several yes or no outcomes or pre-defined policy choices. Other organizations do the important work of debating and lobbying, that's just not our place in the process.

Typically if you're looking at a standard policy debate you can apply what's known as the "Roosevelt Reframe" to develop new strategies to advance shared values. So rather than "should we engage in race-based affirmative action in college admissions" to which the potential answers are "yes" and "no", you can ask "how do we make our colleges more diverse", a goal we hope is shared by those on both sides of that debate.

There is a lot to learn from -- Lyndon Johnson's and Jimmy Carter's wars on hunger were basically successful, for example -- but there is also a lot of room for innovation. Flexible programs and clever economic incentives or regulations that create many small and distributed affordable housing developments rather than massive, isolated structures that have not proven to bring people out of poverty are just now being developed -- witness the tearing down of Cabrini Green in Chicago.

Though the problem is national, much of the progress on affordable housing is going to happen at the local level. Innovative methods of city construction, community partnerships to build good housing and renew areas of urban blight, regulations and incentives targeted at both businesses and individuals to encourage access to housing, and short term and transitional housing solutions that help build the bridge to something more stable, disaster recovery issues, and public works programs will all be part of the solution.

Feasible

Approachable: given the level of research and discourse already available and given who else is working on the issue, college students with a range of experience levels and with varied types of expertise can contribute meaningfully to the debate and are likely to think of good ideas. We don't want something so technical only engineering majors can contribute to it, or something that is already dominated by another think tank or advocacy organization.

Practical: the challenge is stated as a specific, measurable, and achievable goal, incremental progress toward which could be made by chipping away at the problem at various levels of government. The statement is not too broad or too narrow. One good way to make sure something is a good policy challenge rather than a debate or advocacy problem is to think of what sorts of innovative ideas might be produced for the 25 ideas publication series on that topic.

There is already a great deal of expertise in urban planning, and much of the existing think tank infrastructure is focused on fighting poverty. In addition, there is a cabinet-level department focused on housing and urban development. However, the field changes rapidly and must respond to demographic trends and I think we are just now starting to see success in urban revitalization and political impetus behind smarter urban planning.

Ideas might include:
Redevelopment
- coordination between housing and transit authorities
- using former military bases or other available areas for affordable housing
- land reclamation in areas of urban blight
Regulation
- fixing loopholes in affordable housing quota laws
- creative use of rent controls
- linkages between affordable housing and redevelopment funds
- mixed use and mixed income neighborhoods
Individual incentives
- expanding mortgage tax deduction to help renters
- first homeownership assistance and targeted neighborhood-based homeownership increase programs
- use of technology and social workers to match people to affordable housing
Business incentives
- tax incentives for affordable housing construction
- tax penalties for businesses whose workers are homeless (like the proposed wal-mart healthcare law)
- tax incentives for onsite housing for large employers

Comments

Caitlin N Howarth, Sat 7 Jul 6:49 pm PST:

This works well in light of increasing urban renewal efforts already being undertaken. However, we should realize that we will be working against the flow of some major money - developers are not often fond of incorporating the poor into their plans. Closing loopholes in existing equal housing opportunity laws and inclusionary zoning ordinances will be as important as coming up with new initiatives. Also, 'renewal' is sometimes the nice new word for 'gentrification' - something to watch out for. If the Institution were to integrate plans for increased socioeconomic diversification into this broader proposal, that might help us resist the tendency to think more about the plans on paper and more about the real impact on where people live and work in US cities.

Kyle Atwell, Sun 8 Jul 10:25 pm PST:

Awesome. Allows us to propose feasible and innovative policies at both the local and federal levels.

Robert A Nelb, Sun 8 Jul 10:33 pm PST:

I'm not sure that there are enough different projects for fellows to work on with this challenge. Perhaps it could be fit into something larger?