Housing

AMI is typically used to determine whether a person is eligible for housing assistance. But in a large and wealthy area like the New York City metro, the resulting definitions of “low income” are often skewed, leaving out those who really need the help.

The 30 percent standard only ‘works’ in calculations where it is irrelevant. The residual-income approach, on the other hand, can turn what all too often becomes an abstract and theoretical discussion into a series of researchable questions.

Measuring only for cost burden overstates the housing needs of higher-income people and understates the extreme need at the lower end.

At an individual level, the 30 percent standard and the residual-income standard can produce very different results. But as a regional measure of affordability problems, they’re not so far apart.

Using a simple cost-to-income ratio to measure affordability doesn’t give us a good picture of who is really burdened by housing cost. We need a different approach.

The simplicity of the 30 percent standard is also its downfall. We don’t expect people of differing incomes or family sizes to pay the same percentage of their income in taxes—why would the same percentage work for housing costs?

In the Spring 2017 issue of Shelterforce, we talk about something that comes up daily for many people working in the community development field—what does housing affordability mean? Crafting practical policies to back up our vision requires that we be thoughtful about all of the pieces.

While we use terms like “affordable housing,” “moderate income,” “housing poverty,” and “area median income” often, we thought it’d be helpful to explain what all these housing affordability terms mean. Make sure you’re using these 19 terms correctly.

If you live anywhere with a substantial resistance to the current administration’s attacks on immigrants, you may have seen these lawn/window signs–they say, in Spanish, English, and Arabic, “No matter […]

We gathered some people who have done a lot of thinking and studying on regulation to discuss what it might look like to actually remove obstacles that get in the way of developing less expensive housing options responsibly. What’s possible? What are the trade-offs?

The Caño Martín Peña project has succeeded in building community power and gaining control of land by pioneering the community land trust model.

Are children in foster care homeless? It might sound like semantics, but it really makes a big difference. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is the primary federal legislation designed to […]