The United States has long had difficulty providing adequate housing to all Americans. A key issue has been affordability. That is, the cost of shelter as a proportion of low-income families meager income has often been so great that it has left them hard stretched to afford their other basic needs. Today, it is often associated with California and major cities like, Boston Chicago and New York City (though rural areas with widespread poverty also have serious problems).
It is hard for the private sector to meet housing needs below a certain level, in part because what makes affordable housing appealing is its price, which means that increased demand makes it disappear without necessarily leading to more construction. In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration withdrew federal support for affordable housing, and states and local jurisdictions were put in the position of having to deal with the housing problem. Twenty years on, how to best deal with this is a matter of debate.
There are two basic schools of thought. First, there are market-driven approaches. These are generally considered more politically conservative. They focus on trying to increase housing demand in hopes that the private sector will respond by constructing more housing, leading to lower-priced housing. These approaches include cutting regulations that are seen as slowing housing construction, tax incentives to build more housing and the Section 8 housing voucher program that gives poorer persons and families a monthly allowance to spend on housing. These approaches are criticized on the political left as inefficient (they put a lot of money into the hands of developers for the number of housing units produced), overly complex, damaging to environmental protections and underprovisioned (the wait list for Section 8 housing in San Diego is years long). Critics on the left also argue that the market has not responded to the availability of vouchers, and that even the families who are given vouchers are not able to find decent housing in a suitable environment.
More liberal approaches try to more directly lead to the creation of housing units, either through the private, public or non-profit sectors (or some combination thereof). Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages. Criticisms of these approaches broadly are that they do not supply enough housing and that lead to bigger government.
Over the last twenty years, a major part of the story of housing affordability, both in San Diego and the nation as a whole, has been the rise of non-profit housing developers. Most of their funds come from the federal tax-credit program but also from private philanthropic organizations. Intermediary organizations have been created, that connect sources of money (philanthropic foundations and money collected through linkage fees and housing trust funds) to those who have the ability to actually build (and sometimes maintain) such housing.
Below is an example of an upcoming workshop aimed at helping solve the Foreclosure Crisis:
Planners and the Foreclosure Crisis
November 4-5, 2009
The foreclosure crisis has reshaped the face of American communities, leaving boarded-up houses, destabilized neighborhoods, and half-built developments. Planners need to address these issues to ensure that their communities remain vital. Learn how foreclosures affect people, properties and communities. This workshop will help you frame effective, market-sensitive strategies to deal with destabilized neighborhoods and provide tools to deal effectively with vacant properties and other disruptive forces at work in your community.
Faculty:
Alan Mallach, FAICP, is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program of The Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, where he specializes in foreclosure issues, urban revitalization and neighborhood stabilization. His latest book is A Decent Home, published by Planners Press.
Joseph Belval serves as Housing Development Manager for the Community Development Division, Neighborhood Services Department, for the City of Phoenix, Arizona. He recently received one of four national Government Service awards presented by NeighborWorks America.
AICP-certified planners earn CM | 14 credits for each workshop.
Get more details and registration information at http://www.planning.org/pts/2009/fall/foreclosurecrisis.htm
Books, Articles, Papers
Schwartz, Alex. 2002, 2007. Housing policy in the United States: An introduction. New York: Routledge.
If you read one book on housing, this should be it. Dr. Bussell has used it in her classes, so copies of it should be floating around.
Troutman, Philip Parke. 2004. San Diego growth wars: A critique of public participation in California land use politics. University of California, San Diego: Ph.D. dissertation.
The chapter on the American Dream has an extensive listing of articles and books on American attitudes towards renting and owning going back to the 1970s.
Additional books and articles on housing and affordability:
Brown, Marc, and Ann Harrington. 1991. The Case For Inclusionary Zoning. Land Use Forum . 1,1: 23-24.
Brunick, Nicholas. 2007. Compensatory Benefits to Developers for Provision of Affordable Housing: Inclusionary Housing: Lessons from the National Experience. Prepared for the New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing (COAH); Trenton, NJ.
California Coalition for Rural Housing and the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California. 2007; Affordable by Choice: Trends in California Inclusionary Housing Programs. San Francisco, CA.
Coyle, Timothy. 1991. Inclusionary Zoning: Is It Helping or Hurting Housing? Land Use Forum. 1,1:27-28.
Ellickson, Robert. 1982. The Irony of Inclusionary Zoning. In Resolving The Housing Crisis. Bruce Johnson, ed. San Francisco: Pacific Institute for Public Policy Research.
_____. 1985. Inclusionary Zoning: Who Pays? Planning. 51,8: 18-20.
Johnson, Robert, Seymour Schwartz, Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith, and Michael Caplan. 1990. Selling Zoning: Do Density Bonus Incentives for Moderate Cost Housing Work? Land Use Law 3-9. August.
Morris, Marya. 2000, Incentive Zoning: Meeting Urban Design and Affordable Housing Objectives. APA, Planning Advisory Services.
Porter, Douglas. 2004. Inclusionary Zoning for Affordable Housing. Urban Land Institute.
Rosen, David. 2004. Inclusionary Housing and Its Impact on Housing and land Markets. In Inclusionary Housing: The California Experience. Nico Calavita, Editor; National Affordable Housing Conference, Washington, D.C.
San Diego Housing Commission. 1992. Inclusionary Housing Analysis: Balancing Affordability and Regulatory Reform. Report to the Deputy City Manager. San Diego, CA.
Stone, Michael. 2006. Pernicious problems of housing finance. In A right to housing: Foundation for a new social agenda, eds. Rachel G. Bratt, Michael E. Stone and Chester Hartman, 82-104. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Rivinius, Robert. 1991. The Case Against Inclusionary Zoning. Land Use Forum. 1,1: 25-26.
Web Resources - Links and Data
New Urbanism
The Price of Renewal
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Key Organization / Institutions
City of San Diego Affordable Housing
San Diego Housing Commission
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