Tag
affordable housing
Dedicated from the beginning to everyone working to empower and support low-income communities, Shelterforce provides a venue for conversations that need to be had—on topics such as housing affordability, homeownership, and lots more.
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Targeting First-Generation Homebuyers Is a Great Way to Direct Downpayment Assistance—And It Could Be Better
The proposed program could shrink the racial homeownership gap while serving a wide cross-section of people. But it only addresses some of the results of past discrimination.
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To Save On Medi-Cal Costs, a Bid to Help Homeless Patients With Rent Money
California lawmakers consider devoting an additional $90 million to subsidize rent for homeless patients.
After Paying for Housing, How Much is Enough for Basic Necessities?
We need some standards to explain what “enough” means. Here’s a breakdown of the Family Budget Calculator, the Self-Sufficiency Standard, and the Housing Poverty Measure.
Thoughts on the Unnatural Occurrence of Cheap Housing
There are two major issues with NOAH, better known as Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing. One is semantic, and one is practical.
Will Limited-Equity Cooperatives Make a Comeback?
Federal programs and cultural attitudes that helped launch a majority of the large limited-equity co-ops across the nation are long gone, but at a smaller scale, this model of resident-controlled, long-term affordable housing may be experiencing new interest.
How to Build a Case for Community Development and Affordable Housing
In the new administration, housing programs will feel the pressure of budgetary cuts and tax reform. Advocates should be careful not to put down other programs in the process of defending their own, or everyone will lose.
When Deep-Income Targeting Doesn’t Hit the Mark
Deep-income targeting, where the focus is on housing those with the lowest incomes, can mean dramatically different things to affordable rental housing developers in different states, and even in different market areas within the same state.
The Secret History of Area Median Income
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.
Housing Need Is Even More Skewed by Income Than We Thought
Measuring only for cost burden overstates the housing needs of higher-income people and understates the extreme need at the lower end.
In Defense of the 30 Percent of Income to Housing Affordability Rule–In Some Cases
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.
Affordability: The 30 Percent Standard’s Blinders
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.
How Should We Measure Housing Affordability?
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?
Vision, Not Just Critique
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.