Affordability

The role of ‘heirs property’ in eroding Black families’ wealth

Tenant Opportunity to Purchase laws empower renters to get control when their buildings go up for sale. But in D.C., the hurdles to becoming owners are many, and often insurmountable.

Because so many old buildings are hard to fully retrofit, new homes need to fill in the gap.

Even those who praise the tax credit program and what it has accomplished are concerned that there are so few sizeable alternatives to it.

In 2018, the Family Self-Sufficiency Program was expanded to privately owned properties receiving project-based rental assistance. Here’s a look at how early adopters have used the program to support residents, and the lessons they learned along the way.

Four disability activists tell us what they needed to make their homes accessible, and how difficult it can be to find accessible housing.

Facing 25 to 50 percent rent increases, tenants at two apartment towers fought to get the city to enforce its longstanding rent control ordinance. A year later, they earned a win that could result in millions being paid back to them in rent overpayments.

Last year, we reported on tenants in Northern Virginia LIHTC properties whose rents were raised in the middle of their leases. Here’s how other states have banned the practice.

Three years after our initial story, aggressive investors are still suing LIHTC general partners to profit off of what should be affordable housing. But one legal decision, along with proposed legislation, could help protect the right of first refusal.

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit is famously complex. We can’t exactly make it simple, but we’ve broken down the basics, especially those that residents of a LIHTC property might want to know, as clearly as possible.

Housing and policy experts agree that LIHTC has successfully increased the supply of affordable housing. But they also believe there’s room for improvement.

Arrangements in which LIHTC tenants share in the development’s financial benefits, or become partial or full owners, are rare—but some properties have pulled them off. This scan of several examples shows the possibilities—and the conditions needed for them to succeed.