From 1950 to 1987, the population of the world doubled (from 2.5 billion to 5 billion.) Right now it's 7 going on 8 billion, so, tripled since 1950. But is there triple the amount of affordable housing? The effects of enormous population growth have not been planned for in any way in the US; China seems to be the only country capable of doing the math.
11
Nearly all unauthorized migrants live in affordable housing (including some in public housing). Professors at Yale and MIT estimate that, in 2016, there were between 16.7 and 29.5 million people here, without authorization.
The large number of unauthorized migrants has pushed down the wages employers have to pay to our least educated citizens and legal immigrants. Consequently, many are being paid less than their labor is worth.
To make matters worse, the unauthorized migrants compete with citizens and legal immigrants over housing. Since the unauthorized take so many units off the market, landlords raise the rents of the remaining units. With their low wages, many cannot find any units they can afford.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle have large numbers of unauthorized migrants and of homeless people. We would have homes for the homeless, if we enforced our immigration laws.
21
Suffice to say that NIMBY forces in far too many communities have delayed and/or effectively quashed development plans, in many cases even after property owners have crossed all the requisite t's and dotted all the essential i's in the plan approval process. Even after NIMBY forces have succeeded in forcing amendments and reductions in the scale of a project during the planning and approval phase, it is not uncommon for a few naysayers to turn to the court system to assist with their obstruction efforts. The delays in moving forward may take 5 to 10 years (or more) and the time involved has an obvious chilling effect on investors and the number of housing units produced over time.
4
When you see hedge funds getting into trailer parks you should expect alarms to go off and government to step in. The last rental initiative on the ballot here in CA went down in flames to the surprise of no one, the sheer amount of money spent by the real estate industry and hedge funds was amazing.
Steps to take the speculation out have to be taken in our current world of stagnant incomes and fewer jobs- this piece nails it with the need for more construction and less restrictive zoning at local levels. This relentless gouging is putting too many people in economic peril.
8
We need to encourage construction: Streamline our building codes, untangle our zoning rules, subsidize innovation, condemn the crumbling buildings that stand in the way, and incentivize density in any way we can.
Like the author, I'm not a fan of demand-side subsidies and loans. Look at what happens every time we try that: higher education, healthcare, home ownership... Prices just skyrocket in response to the artificially-inflated ability of everyone to pay increasingly ridiculous amounts of money. I can't argue against the fact that substantially improving the housing supply will take decades, though, so perhaps some direct aid really is in order.
What the article doesn't mention is that much of the affordable housing that DOES exist is woefully outdated, whether rented or owned. An increase in new construction won't only help the housing situation, it will also mitigate climate change by reducing the number of energy pigs in our housing stock and ensuring that more people are living in modern, energy-efficient buildings.
6
@John Installing double-paned windows and insulating the attic cuts down significantly on energy costs, even in an older building. Having a tree, or trees, shading the roof helps significantly. Even a double layer of drapes, a sheer layer plus a heavier layer, helps a lot with windows. Then there's weather stripping. In sunny climates, you can put solar panels on the roof. There are many things that can be done without tearing down the whole building. Where I've lived in California, they are routine and in some cases, such as any replacement windows in older buildings must be double paned, are required by code. Also, older brick and stone buildings are naturally well insulated, though here in California they are scarce due to earthquake building codes. Which, BTW, also generally do not encourage building high buildings, because the fewer stories the safer the building.
2
Every new house that we build, we destroy nature bit by bit, tree by tree.
There's a no-brainer, environment friendly solution:
Deport every single illegal alien, and use their houses to shelter our homeless citizens.
Evicting 10-20 million illegals should more than solve the problem. It will also bring down home prices and make it more affordable for our own citizens.
10
For those complaining about the environmental cost of suburban single-family homes: A huge number have already been built, and there is an environmental cost to tearing down functional houses and then building larger ones on the same spot. And, many families already do have elderly parents and/or adult children living with them. It is also common for families to need an office where they can work at home at least part of the time, and that is what many "extra" bedrooms are being used for. But also, dense cities increase global warming by consisting of miles of asphalt that reflects heat back into the atmosphere. Suburban homeowners typically plant grass, trees that absorb carbon dioxide, and flowering plants that feed bees and butterflies. They may even have organic vegetable gardens.
10
Unfortunately, under HUD and Ben Carson, we can't manage the housing for the less fortunate that we have, now. No department of our government, I don't think, has ever fostered so much corruption.
2
Gentrification has forced low income people to the periphery of cities. Single family zoning laws gobble up large parts of cities. The 2009 foreclosure crisis gave large corporations the ability to take over foreclosed homes. The US real estate mania is all about making the big profit. As was stated in the article well healed Democrats are not happy about changes in their lush life.
5
This is strange. I remember this editorial board praising New York’s new rent laws a few short weeks ago. Rent laws that will make building new buildings unprofitable and result in reduced maintenance for older buildings.
12
We just spent months on allowing deregulation of certain zoning requirements that may produce 20 new units---the city provided no data on the expected number of units but the history shows 93 in 10 years!!! It said again without data that the rents would be something that working and middle class people can afford because the number would drop the price (our median income is around $45K) A rental just was advertised the day before--450 sf for $1250/month--not useful to those whose expectations were raised. And our land use dept is a joke--always "forgetting" or being mistaken about setbacks, height and off street parking. Sometimes it is not zoning but private covenants that keep lots large.
And our city council skirted the issues of actual affordable and market rate housing on city land and the biggest problem of all-short term rentals....
It raised unrealistic expectations and divided our community.
Did I say that the lieu in fee of providing an affordable housing unit for a developer is $262/unit---another joke.
2
All of these plans address the symptoms on the housing crisis, but do nothing at all to get at the root cause.
The issue in many areas -- including much of Nevada and California -- isn't a lack of housing; it's that wealthy and corporate buyers have immediately jumped on any available properties (offering cash, natch), and then used their market dominance to increase rents.
All I see in the "plans" by these candidates is a new way to funnel government funds to wealthy Americans, while ignoring the fact that home ownership is forever out of reach.
What needs to happen is a much more ambitious plan whereby homes can only be bought by individuals, and a cap created on the number of properties that any individual can own. Give corporations a 10-year timeline to unwind their investments.
7
I wont pretend to have THE answer to this problem but alot of things need to be done. it's almost impossible to keep a roof over your head and have healthcare (that's with the ACA, God help us is the GOP gets rid of that) , don't even think about a car. I can almost make it but if I have a 500 dollar emergency I am Screwed. Its game over.
4
It's interesting that the three markets that continuously outpace inflation are housing, health care and higher education. All three are basically necessities.
5
All three are areas that the government is heavily involved in...
4
It appears to be a fact that this country has insufficient housing for all its residents.
Why then do we keep taking in hundreds of thousands of immigrants? Must we destroy single-family home neighborhoods? Must we cram more and more people into this country, at the cost of the environment and livability?
15
@The Poet McTeagle If the problem is on the supply side, there is no point trying to fight it on the demand side. In other words if we don’t want to build enough housing for everyone we will always have an issue whatever we do on the immigration side.
5
At least in my neck of the woods (Suffolk, Long Island), there is a simpler zoning solution that doesn't require new construction. Ease the rules and restrictions for allowing people to sublet parts of their own homes.
We currently have scores of "illegal" apartments because getting a variance for an accessory apartment is next to impossible unless you are very well connected politically. Meanwhile, many of us who are Baby Boomers and Gen Z have homes large enough for accessory apartments which can then help to pay the Island's exorbitant property taxes. Obviously, there needs to be some control -- nobody wants to live next to a firetrap house with 20 people crammed in -- but the current system discourages responsible renting and makes it hard to determine how many people are actually living in the area.
8
Real estate is a world market. Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Vancouver, London, Sydney, etc.... are attractive locations for wealthy overseas buyers. Sydney real estate prices recently dropped by 20% or so when restrictions were put on such buyers, enabling domestic purchasers opportunity to enter the market.
4
@Ned Now tell the truth-- they dropped to 4 million from 5 million! Right?
1
“Market-rate development, however, is not a sufficient solution. For millions of lower-income Americans, the rent is simply too high.” This is so wrong! Why do you think rents rise in lower-income neighborhoods? Because there are middle-class people moving in who are able to pay these higher rents. And middle-class people move to these neighborhoods because in their own neighborhoods they are being priced out by the rich people who are able to pay the rents on newbuilt. If you build enough housing for these rich people, they will not need to price anyone out.
When you subsidize demand in a market where supply is constrained, you will cause the inflation that you are trying to fight in the first place. So it makes sense for some desperate people that you cannot not help, but extending these programs to the whole working class (or even to the middle class in some of these schemes) is a complete nonsense.
Fiscal measures make a lot of sense (because currently there is a fiscal advantage in preventing more, cheaper housing), and so do the measures to remove the regulations that prevent the increase of supply. But many ideas coming up in housing lately are misguided: supply is key. The argument that increasing supply takes decades is weak: once it becomes clear that the trend on prices is downwards things can accelerate very quickly because people and investment funds will stop hoarding land and housing.
4
Your scheme works on assumption that there is no population growth, although one would wonder why the rich need to move in the middle-class neighborhood? what happened to the original rich class neighborhood?
2
@yulia What I say is true even if there is population growth. If there is population growth then just build more housing for the newcomers, to avoid competition with people already there.
Regarding why rich people move to middle-class neighborhoods, there are plenty of reasons, none of them requiring to blame them: more rich people coming in, meaning there isn’t enough space in the rich neighborhoods, or richer people coming in, and pricing them out. Rich people need to live somewhere too; if there isn’t enough housing in “their” neighborhood they’ll go to the second best.
2
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said it best when announcing a $1B plan to build housing in the Bay Area: "It's a complex issue."
Yes. We wouldn't know that by listening to those who endorse the cartoon view that its a zoning (supply) problem creating by NIMBY's and local governments.
An equally cartoonish (and true) view is that market capitalism is the problem. Here are the rules: Tech jobs are holy, any employer who wishes to jam more into the Bay Area should be praised -- the more, the better. Offices uses crowd-out housing uses, (except during recession). Luxury housing crowds out non-luxury housing. There's no market full stop for those who can't cover the costs of housing, and in, California, the STATE building code and high land costs make building expensive.
No local government is forcing land owners to build offices over housing.
Greed directs ALL available land to jobs, not housing, and new highly paid employees crowd-out existing lower-paid residents for the housing stock.
The more tech jobs, the worse the problem.
You might want to believe buying a West Menlo home for $4M and putting up a "small apartment" of 6 units could "solve" "the problem" but add constructions costs to the $4M land cost and unit prices > $1M, hardly affordable, but within the range of new Facebook workers.
It's all about housing tech workers while pretending to house school teachers. Adding more tech workers makes the problem worse, but who will say, "No" to Zuck?
4
@Paul If all these Facebook people don’t move to California, they will move live elsewhere (unless you think we should actually kill these high-paying jobs, which I will assume you don’t want to). So do you think if we stop “cramming them” in the Silicon Valley the problem will just be displaced (in that case you haven’t solved anything)?
Or that it would just not cause the same problems elsewhere? If so, why? The reason is that if they moved to rural Dakota, there would be enough housing supply for prices to not go through the roof. It is indeed all about supply, because there would be more than enough space in California if we weren’t regulating housing that badly. And we wouldn’t have such poor housing regulation if we didn’t have a system that catered to the NIMBYs. You can’t blame people for wanting to pay less taxes, have schools with rich kids in them, and earning insane amounts of money just through property values going up; but you can blame the person who designs the system that allows them to decide.
2
@Bob Yes, the jobs will still be created somewhere else. That's fine. That's the alternative policy. Encourage geographic distribution. No, not all to Dakota. Then Dakota would be a problem. To many different places. Its a really big country.
What's economically different about cramming 30M tech jobs into two slivers of land, one on the East and one on the West coast, and distributing the same 30M jobs throughout all of America, is the amount and price of land itself.
Tech job herding in Silicon Valley has created inflationary land prices -- they aren't making any more land in the Bay Area. Those prices propagate throughout the entire land use economy, including housing. They cannot be gotten rid of. Governments can't create more land on the Peninsula.
If you want to blame local governments for something, blame them for all the zoning changes they made to allow very high job densities.
An affluent population of tech workers will always displace less affluent communities wherever they are.
In rural America there would be less displacement and affluent spending would create more jobs in the local economy. In Silicon Valley tech salary affluence goes to land owners as windfall land prices.
The system that allows private property values to go up because many, many people demand use of the property is called "Capitalism."
If tech hadn't been given tax breaks for no reason they could've been encouraged to relocate jobs.
2
Around and in the cities, the overcrowding is clearly caused by new immigrants. We should stop subsidizing their housing, their education and the public transportation and public areas usage.
There is clearly a competition for housing. Reducing or halting new arrivals would surely help
10
Democrat housing policies are like the actions of the arsonist firefighter: first cause the problem, then pretend that you are there to solve it.
Democrat policies made permitting an absolute insanity. In certain cities, such as San Francisco, it can take 5 years to obtain a building permit. The bureaucratic costs being so high, the developers must build luxury units in order to recoup costs. Then the lack affordable units is baked into the cake, and the socialist parade of buying votes through subsidies goes on.
The real problem is that this vicious circle never stops...more regulation...higher permitting costs...more expensive units...more subsidies...more socialist votes. Rinse and repeat.
6
@Gabe The main cost in building housing is not planning, it’s land. A regulatory burden is always an issue, but it is not what makes housing expensive: if you decrease the burden suddenly owning land is much more valuable, so what you win on one side you lose on the other. We are not in a free-market situation where decreasing a cost on the supply side means lower prices on the demand one.
The problem is that when supply is constrained (you can spend as many years as you want fighting the administration, you can’t build five units in an area zoned for single housing), prices will rise to match people’s ability to pay: if you have 10 units for 15 households, prices will rise until 5 households cannot afford them. And not caring about people who are struggling is not really specific to Democrats.
4
Didn't the Dem say that they want to change the land-use laws to accommodate more buildings? And what is the wonderful Rep solution? Tax-cut for rich home-owners?
Affordable housing is in big demand with little option. More need to be done to fit in the small S.S checks folks get.
The "YIMBY" movement to do away with single-family zoning is so ham-handed, it will be about as successful as "Urban Renewal" in displacing residents of low-cost neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color.
This editorial isn't as egregious as typical YIMBY ranting, but it neglects the need for more evidence-based approaches. My mostly single-family neighborhood rewrote our own zoning code to all forms of housing, but with appropriate siting and development standards. We've also pushed for more subsidized housing on the bus rapid transit route adjacent to our neighborhood because low-income families need good public transit options.
We also have pushed for mixed development of "family-friendly scale (low-rise) and multiple-generation apartments (mid-rise) and the same (ideally-located) site in our neighborhood.
Unfortunately, Oregon's Democratic super-majority has taken the hammer to our neighborhood planning process, so much of our effort will be for naught as out-of-area real estate investors cannibalize our neighborhood to build expensive condos.
8
@Janice Your experience only confirms the fears of single-family homeowners: re-zoning is, at worst, a Trojan horse, or at the very least, a bumbling half-baked policy mandate imposed by earnest busybodies incapable of seeing unintended consequences. Traditional neighborhoods will be obliterated, with none of the promised relief.
8
What is your solution?
An oft-repeated aphorism warns that the cause of problems is solutions. That warning is often ignored. The laudability of housing programs should not be an excuse, for example, for making metro areas unpleasant through excessive population densities, destruction of green spaces, and overloading infrastructures. Housing subsidy proposals should not be vehicles for virtue signaling; they must be thoughtfully structured so they really help low- and moderate-income people, not enrich builders and landlords and help politicians pretend they’re ‘woke’.
Transportation may need rethinking. Where I live, in the Boston area, mass transport funnels downtown; cross-town mass transit, not merely trunk line extensions, has needed consideration for decades. Properly planned, could it help disperse economic opportunities?
4
Portland is a laboratory for "progressive" schemes, and we are now in the midst of various social experiments. The city has long advocated building its way out of a self-proclaimed housing "crisis," although every government intervention into the deeply complex (and, yes, corrupt) housing market leads to renewed proclamations of "crisis" and even more government intervention.
One big problem is that much of Portland's bureaucracy is financed by construction. For example, it costs a minimum of about $30K (and up) in a "System Development Charge" to be paid before one shovel of dirt turns over.
Portland has 50 miles of gravel (yes, gravel) streets--most in near-suburbs that the city gobbled up and promptly forgot. City Council gave builders along gravel a choice: pay for a fully-paved street or cough up $600 per foot to go into a city paving fund. That charge was recently capped at around $35K. Housing on gravel? Fuggetabouit!! Do the arithmetic and you'll find out why no sane builder is putting up less-expensive housing--which is what the city actually needs.
The state of Oregon is now in on the act: it recently told all cities of any size that they cannot zone for "single-family" homes. They have a year to figure out what that means in real life--but expect tear-downs, "four-plexes" (aka tenements) and a transition from home-ownership to renting. Kiss building equity goodbye. Say hello to bang-it-together construction that will build the slums of tomorrow.
24
@richard Cheverton
Absolutely true!
And -- surprise! -- The outside investors have funded "build-baby-build" advocacy sites and formerly citizen-driven organizations, such as "1000 Friends of Oregon," now widely loathed as the "1000 FIENDS of Oregon. Oregon House Speaker Kotek pushed the "one-size-(mis)fits-all" HB 2001 to reward development contributors and to throw "red meat" for her naïve YIMBY base.
Read the testimony at:
https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2019R1/Measures/Exhibits/HB2001
and you'll find the voluminous evidence of seriously harmful results that will come out of HB 2001, but only fantasy-based "arguments" in support.
3
This is the result of no popular design culture in the discourse, just generic simplifications that don’t match the diversity of cities and neighborhoods.
This kind of zero-sum generic urbanism is going to poison any hope of improvement. The goal is not “more housing”, it must be better cities.
This is the same kind of people who don’t understand why people want to drive and why highways keep getting built. People want the freedom and comfort of cars, and the comfort and investment of houses.
What would be “smart” would be to find poor functioning low density neighborhoods, build dense housing, then connect it to the city with public transportation. Design smart infrastructures. Encourage driving locally, but commuting publicly. Anchor new solutions in existing architecture, instead of wasting good neighborhoods at the alter of McUrbanism 2. Neither Bureaucrats or market speculators should not be trusted to solve the housing critics.
10
A lot of people spend more than they can afford on housing for two reasons:
1. There is hardly any modest housing that isn't old and dilapidated. The average square footage of a home tripled from 1950 to 2000. People don't necessarily want that much space, but they also don't want to take on the hassles that come with an old house. (I know, mine was built in 1940). We need to subsidize houses in the 1000-2000 sf range. We did it in the post-WW2 era and it worked really well.
2. Schools. Until the US stops tying the quality of schools to the cost of nearby houses, people will buy more house than they want or need so their kids can go to better schools (and I don't blame them!). We need to start zoning for mixed-income neighborhoods by allowing development on smaller plots and by mixing single- and multi-family zones. My neighborhood has small and large single-family homes, as well as 2-, 4-, and 8-unit buildings and it's lovely. And, well, we could also consider funding schools differently but apparently that's a third rail of politics.
6
I think the two most cost effective ways to confront this problem are zoning revisions, as the article discusses, and secondly, mass transit/infrastructure improvement. The faster and more efficient our commutes the larger the area we can live in and still get to our jobs and other destinations. This would increase the area of building an thus the supply. Mass transit/infrastructure improvements would improve other aspects of life as well.
2
It worked so well in NYC. Yes, everyone lives in a shoebox, but the housing is so...affordable? Oh wait, nevermind.
12
Abundant affordable housing sits vacant in rust belt cities like Cleveland and Detroit. Why not pay relocation expenses for a few residents of overcrowded cities? We'll gladly take refugees as well.
7
@pre Thank you. This is the solution in the best interests of the broader society. We don't need to keep cramming 'em in on the coasts. America once sustained provincial centers of industries that were microcosms of large cities, with jobs, civic institutions, schools, and hospitals. The urban planning crowd are fixated with cramming more bodies into New York and L.A., when the best solution for the country would be revitalized red states, not blue states full of cracker box apartments.
7
"This embrace of deregulation merits particular praise because the states most resistant to allowing housing construction are the strongholds of the Democratic Party, in the Northeast and along the Pacific Coast, and the most resistant voters are the wealthy residents of those states who provide so much of the funding for Democratic presidential campaigns.”
The cover of the 1/17/19 NY Review of Books advertises an article on “California in Crisis”. The index lists the article as “California: The State of Resistance”. I think it could be titled “California’s Resistance to Enforcing Immigration Laws has Helped Create a Housing Crisis”. The article says:
“The California Values Act … restricts cooperation between local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”
“When housing costs are factored in, it has the highest poverty rate in the U.S. More than a quarter of the nation’s homeless live in California.”
“In most localities homeowners have tight control over their neighborhoods and reject proposals for moderately priced multi-unit buildings. The stated liberal objection is that greater housing density will increase traffic and air pollution and overload fragile public schools.”
The upper-class likes the concept of providing sanctuary to everyone who wants to move here, but they do not want any of the poor and less educated to live near them.
6
There is plenty of existing available land. There is plenty of affordable housing. It's just located in areas where people don't want to live. Many cities have dozens of vacant lots., some have entire blocks of vacant land. Many cities have decent housing that is more affordable than people think. It doesn't make sense to aggressively build while acres of vacant land exists in urban areas. We should also rethink public housing construction. Pushing low-income residents into middle-class neighborhoods is a challenge whether we like it or not. Public housing can work IF buildings are properly funded and maintained. If we built and maintained public housing like we build and maintain oversees military bases we'll do well.
9
There are so many enormous systemic problems underlying the high cost of housing in our metropolitan areas.
These built-up areas lack the infrastructure for adding great numbers of units. Jobs and educational and cultural opportunities are concentrated in areas with inadequate infrastructure because there is no planning to anticipate growth. Transportation is the biggy. So many smaller cities with land and potential could use investment that would help workers and ordinary households, but they don't get much from state or federal coffers.
By leaving development to the investor class, we get investment that looks, in the short term, for the biggest windfall. With many of the large rental properties being built, it looks likely, too, that the developers will build and sell, thus passing off onto others the future costs of their on-the-cheap construction, over-building of tiny rental units, and over-selling same as "luxury." The investor class has all the winning hands in deciding what its rate of profit must be in developing housing, and essentially dictates terms to local governments. Subsidies and re-zoning are music to investor ears.
4
If one is able to distribute 4 times as many section 8 vouchers this only solves the easier aspect of the problem. Where are those houses and apartments supposed to come from ?Because right now they do not exist.
And let's talk about building them-doing the hard, dirty, rough, heavy labor that goes into construction. Oh, I know-start by kicking out the immigrant labor that we need. Because many of our home grown young people are absolutely not interested in this work. I have a son in law who is a skilled, licensed contractor with all the work he can handle. So I'm not uninformed.
2
@Consuelo
In the 1980's, as companies began off-shoring their manufacturing jobs to countries with cheap labor and unenforced environmental laws, their former workers found good paying jobs in construction. The construction boom ended in 2008, with the Great Recession.
When the economy began to recover, builders decided to hire the undocumented rather than their former workers. Not only did this save the builders money, it meant they could hire just one supervisor who would bring in an entire crew to frame the house or do other work.
The supervisor might make his work crew up of people who he had illegally come here from his home town. Perhaps they all sleep in his apartment. Who knows how much he pays them. Maybe they owe him money for paying coyotes to bring them here.
He would not hire a citizen who would expect regular wages or to expect his co-workers to speak English.
Many of the Americans who had made a decent living working in construction before the Great Recession had to find work in fields that paid less money. They have not been passing their knowledge of construction on to their children. Now builders say they do not have enough workers - they need the undocumented.
If builders want to rectify a problem that they, themselves, created, they could rehire their former workers and their association could train citizens in the construction trades.
5
Fee structures of Bay Area (CA) cities range from ~$70k to $120k, per new house. Numbers: 4.5% 30 -year loan, just for the fees to the city is a monthly payment of $350-$600 per month. That is just to pay the fees imposed on a new house. Yes folks, it is baked into the price.
Affordable components in new subdivisions: Also baked into the cost of the new house. New residents are the only ones footing the bill for affordable homes in that neighborhood.
NIMBYs: I have heard some nearly unspeakable things at planning meetings. My favorite: "Can we shut the water off to the new houses if we get into another drought?"
City planners: Archaic solutions. Forcing developers to keep nonviable "retail/commercial space" in new infill subdivisions.
1
As a homeowner of many years, I would also suggest limits on property taxes. It does not help if someone can buy a house or condo and not be able to pay taxes which can rise much faster than the average income.
7
It’s easy for those who don’t live in these cities to prescribe more housing and less zoning restrictions. The problem in a democracy with local control is that housing policies naturally and justifiably will be decided by current residents and homeowners, not by outsiders or those who would like to move in but can’t afford it.
Attempts to control local housing policies can only go so far before there will be a backlash, and most of the attempts will ultimately be stymied by more resistance and red tape.
The problem of housing cannot be separated from the concentration of economic development in the high cost areas. The better policy would be to encourage low cost areas to get better about economic development and to create jobs where housing is affordable and more abundant.
Many high cost areas are crowded and can only accommodate more housing by cramming more units in smaller spaces and creating density and transit problems. Mandating more density of lower cost housing will just trash existing communities and will not lower housing costs enough to solve the problem. Land is just too expensive.
11
The key to housing affordability is laws restricting ownership in single family homes and condominiums by any individual, couple or company, beyond two.
2
@ZenPolitico No, that is the key to the end of individual freedom.
2
@Jake How so?
The problem with the housing 'crisis' is one of foreign investment and ownership. It's NOT zoning. More than 50% of the residential homes in a city south of ATL are owned by real estate investment vehicles out of Australia and Europe. China is buying up land out west like mad.
NYC has countless apartments owned by foreigners that do not live there and pay little taxes (if any). And the development of apartment complexes in forested enclaves like the suburbs not only destroys the residents way of life, but eliminates critical vegetation that fights climate change by ingesting CO2.
We need strong limits on legal immigration, enforcement of laws that deter or eliminate illegal immigration, and an honest look at homelessness. What causes it? For the most part, it has nothing to do with a lack of housing, unless you look at cities like SF where 'everyone' would like to live, but few can afford.
If the Fed doesn't limit foreign ownership, say good bye to tax revenue and hello to slum lords. Rents on apartments and homes has skyrocketed as a result. And the land that the Chinese have been buying contains aquifers that we'll be charged a fortune for in future years.
11
The more the government subsidizes, the greater the incentive for people to lower their incomes through working less. Two income families are punished for hard work. Look at NY state: if two parents work and save for their children's college education, they do not receive the "free" college tuition that single income families receive, nor do they receive the federal subsidy for the Affordable Care act, nor do they qualify for low income or affordable housing. They are, however, qualified to pay taxes to support benefits for which they are ineligible. More government subsidies will make this unfair situation even worse.
10
How about shifting our culture away from viewing real estate as investment vehicles to simply housing, allowing us to think more pragmatically about relative housing shortages (relative because we have ample supply, it’s simply too expensive) rather than defensively. How about political support for the development of other vehicles of security outside of property, a stubborn holdover from a feudal age.
3
Clearly none of the folks on here calling for more regulation are involved in the housing industry.
Over regulation increases the cost of housing. It is one of several factors but still one of the largest. Environmental regulations in particular add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of homes in places like CA, which have more of them, compared to states like TX that have fewer.
The NYT Editorial Page has never seen a regulation they didn't like. Somehow not surprising that this piece makes no mention of the effect they have on construction cost.
7
Repeal the Faircloth Limit and build new public housing. You only have to go through these contortions if you're bent on keeping a system that allows private developers to syphon away federal dollars via subsidies and tax credits to renters in order to pad their own margins. Skip the profiteers.
2
Government subsidies and guarantees should only be made in neighborhoods that reflect the community's diversity. This is the only way we will ever recover from redlining and segregation.
1
Sounds like, in great liberal/Democratic tradition, the solution should be, well, busing.
After all, it worked so well, according to Kamala Harris and the NYT, for school desegregation. It should work just as well for housing.
The idea is to house all the people who can't afford high rent in city centers in cheaper, far away places, and bus them to work, school, etc.
Busing is the future for Democrats. Bus students, bus workers, bus residents.
Democrats 2020: Make busing great again.
11
Many people are just one misfortune away from becoming homeless. Get sick, lose job. Sometimes people get good paying jobs but they aren't enough to pay for a house in that location and they wind up living in their cars.
It would be a mistake to assume that all the people camping out are mentally ill or addicted.
It would be a mistake to assume that all immigrants are sterling characters and the unfortunate native born are all clueless wasters.
2
Let’s think locally NYT Ed Bd.
NYC builds billions in subways to the richest people in NYC, Second Av / UWS & #7 extension /Hudson Yards, then imposes tolls on cars OUTSIDE of Manhattan to come in (an economic gate around the wealthy community), and then NYC-The City Council-spends millions to subsidize the Hudson Yards development by not just tax breaks but actually paying for interest payments on developers loans.
Meanwhile, NYCHA still has kids exposed to lead, and offers substandard housing whose “affordability” is a joke.
Instead of telling the country how a President can fix the nations problems, please, pretty please, devote an equal amount of your next column-inches to de Blaz & Corey Johnson / City Council, as well as the Democrat Controlled NYS government, telling them how they should fix NYC.
The land of “poor doors” , NIMBY & AOC sending away 25,000 well paying, tax generating good jobs.
1
So what stops the Uber rich from just buying up all this extra housing? Time for laws and legislation to protect the little guy (oh the horror, eh GOP?).
4
I have always said that America is a Darwinian society.
2
Mixed-income housing won't work. It has been tried before. The results aren't promising. President Clinton's 1994 program called the “Moving to Opportunity Initiative,” placed thousands of families from government projects to higher-quality homes in several counties across the US. The 15-year experiment bombed. A 2011 study by HUD found that adults using more generous Section 8 vouchers did not get better jobs or get off welfare. In fact, more went on food stamps. And their children did not do better in their new schools. Worse, crime simply followed them to their safer neighborhoods, ruining the quality of life for existing residents. Dubuque, Iowa, for example, received an influx of voucher holders from projects in Chicago & it’s had a problem with crime ever since. A recent study linked Dubuque’s crime wave directly to Section 8 housing. HUD tested this new theory in Dallas in 2012 with disastrous results. Starting in 2012, the agency sweetened Section 8 voucher payments & pointed inner-city recipients to the far-flung counties surrounding Dallas. As government-subsidized rentals spread in all areas so did the crime. Now Dallas has one of the highest murder rates in the nation & had to call in state troopers to help police control it. For the first time, violent crime has shifted to the bedroom communities north of the city. Although HUD’s “demonstration project” may have improved the lives of some who moved, it’s ended up harming the lives of many of their new neighbors.
15
If the choice is construction, let's hope it won't likely be over abandoned big box and industrial sites. Bull dozing more forests and open land is what it means. Great idea, move the world even more towards a dystopian, nature-less future. Every day, all my life I have watched the trees and fields around me be erased and filled with shoddy construction, so I know this is true.
3
Once again rural areas are left out of the conversation. There's a housing shortage here too. The city and county where I live have very strict rules concerning "urban sprawl." How can we house more people without growing cities? How about investing in efficient commuting projects and rural housing. I live 30 minutes from a thriving city. I have no high-speed internet and a bus that stops 5 miles away twice a day on the main highway. We have great schools and very little crime and lots of land.
I won't vote for any candidate with a huge social program unless they can tell me where the money will come from.
Education and hope are the solutions to the housing problem, long term.
2
Easily said in an oped, but blocking the creation of new housing is what hypocritical liberals do best. San Francisco is probably the gold standard of this, but you see it everywhere.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90242388/the-bad-design-that-created-one-of-americas-worst-housing-crises
4
And we know that riswing tides to not lift all boats.
This editorial would merit more consideration if it included evidence for its claim that building more housing increases affordability. I am pleased other readers explain why this is speculative at best. Speaking of which, I appreciate a reader's suggestion that investing in housing simply as speculation should be banned. Of course, "an elephant in the room" is the fact that the buying power of the wages for most working people has been flat, if not somewhat reduced, since the 1970s. The Founding Fathers ensured the pursuit of property, what the Declaration of Independence refers to as happiness, would be the primary source of wealth in America. The lack of housing affordability means an increasing number of Americans are not "happy." And how did this work out for our indigenous peoples who were pursued for their property?
4
I would ask if more development increases or decreases the 'livability' of a particular place? With added housing comes the needs for more and better roads and transportation, which is usually a factor completely ignored by new development. Here in VT, where we do have a housing crisis, many of the new developments have have been for people 'from away' buying up vacation or second homes, which drives up the costs of everything else for permanent residents. Whatever the solutions may be, dropping restrictions on development is not the way to go, unless turning the nation into on oversized sprawling suburb, is the plan.
6
"— for example, by allowing small-scale apartment buildings in single-family neighborhoods. "
Woohoo! Let the roaring NIMBYs out of their cages and into the arena!
Also - what about changing zoning in cities with high housing costs to allow more backyard cottages and accessory dwelling units? This will create small, inexpensive housing units and make home ownership more affordable for middle-class people, since the accessory unit can help them with their mortgages.
2
It is beyond discouraging that the Times would write this and really not get at the heart of the issue. Please read The Real Estate State, a new book by Sam Stein, to really understand what is going on. The lack of affordable housing has been designed, it is not some sort of fluke or accident. New York City, for example, has had no fall off in construction over the past 20 years; in fact, the opposite. But what has been built? Luxury apartments. Even tax breaks for building affordable housing have been hijacked to build luxury market-rate apartments (i.e. 421-A). Until the Times is transparent about this, it's hard to take op-eds like this very seriously. Real estate interests have made it goal number one that rents constantly go up, no matter what happens to people's incomes. It's high time we had a correction in this unsustainable model. Too many of us cannot afford it anymore. Half our income and more goes to rent. Landlords and developers have no conscience regarding this - they simply say if you can't afford it, move. The Times has been complicit in this, in my opinion; I have yet to see the real estate or business section take on the problem with any seriousness. Affordable housing has been a serious problem for 20 years (longer really) in NYC, yet the Times has ignored the problem.
6
Major corporations hold the key to solving this problem. Look back to the industrialization of the South and you see factory "villages" that housed the workers who came from farms. Our military also provides housing on bases, and colleges and universities provide affordable housing not only for students but also faculty. Creating new housing should go hand in hand with creating jobs in high-density, high-rent localities. Companies should either build the housing for their own employees, or pay a tax for the local governments to increase the housing supply using eminent domain to build where the greatest need is. Call it a "housing impact tax." All federal policies should be designed to disperse jobs outside big metropolitan areas and at the same time, reduce suburban commuting and freeway gridlock as a pillar of climate change policy. The closer people can live to their work, the less fossil fuel they burn.
3
The housing crisis isn't just about poor families.
Rents and housing costs are rising so much in some areas that those of us in the middle class, with good incomes, also are at risk.
I am surrounded by numerous projects, townhouses, condos, apartments and single family homes. All of them, hundreds of units, are all for very high income families.
None affordable for anyone making less than $100K.
Why would a builder, build a complex for affordable monthly rent of $1K or less, when they can collect $2-5K a unit?
8
The focus on low-cost housing is a distraction. Just keep adding more housing stock, whatever the developers think will work.
Here's a choice for a large city:
(1) Add 100,000 new residences without restricting their prices or rents.
(2) Add 100,000 new residences restricted to have low prices or rents.
In either case, you've added the same number of units, and the market will adjust through lower prices. And why not prefer (1), which adds quality housing, over (2), which does not?
Many older people want to stay in their neighborhoods but their homes are too big and not accessible. Building smaller units, duplexes or 4 plexus or dividing existing larger homes would help. Also having more affordable housing in many areas would diversify the schools.
And I live in a single family area and don’t have any problem with more density.
@penney albany As an older person who intends to stay in my home, I don't think accessibility has anything to do with the size of the house. It has to do with whether the area is hilly, meaning many steps just to get into the house. It has to do with interior stairs, and chair lifts or elevators can be added to an existing house. Dividing a house would do nothing for accessibility. Certainly a four-plex could be designed with an elevator to begin with, but I have never seen one with an elevator.
1
Here's Question--why are the poor being taxed when they need that money for rent. No one making under $30,000 should be taxed and if you have children- $10,000 should be additional non tax. The Government wants to help out--no it doesn't as long as you tax the poor.
Here's a better idea: Triple and quadruple the property tax on residential property that is purposely left empty.
There's been a lot of new housing built in my neck-of-the-woods. 99% of it is "market rate" housing, with private equity investors preferring to leave units unrented unless and until they command a lofty price that bears no relation to what the vast majority of residents can afford to pay. The few "affordable" units they toss in to satisfy local city councils are studio apartments of less than 500-square feet, unsuitable for families. In other words, they're not "affordable," just undesirable.
4
I'm glad to see the editorial mentions zoning restrictions as a major factor in the high cost of housing in numerous urban areas. Until recently, zoning has been underpublicized in the press.
Without substantial zoning relief to knock housing costs to where they should be: just a little more than construction costs, the whole effort is futile: the taxpayers just pay subsidies for very high cost housing, perhaps getting lower income people a bit more of the housing, but keeping the total number of households in any metropolitan area substantially unchanged, and making life expensive and difficult for people. (The editorial points this aspect out: "A 2005 increase in the value of federal housing vouchers ended up lining the pockets of landlords, according to a recent study.")
Good luck to us trying to make housing affordable, and life livable, around our major cities. There is massive resistance to zoning reform among housing special interests, among current home-owners who stand to profit massively from capital gains on homes purchased years ago, and from people with anti-development instincts and without an understanding of how zoning restrictions can drive up the cost of housing by a big multiple.
Unfortunately, I'm pessimistic. My guess is in cities with affordability problems, it's too little too late.
I advise young people without lots of inherited wealth, and without really high-paying jobs, to not stick around, and just move somewhere where housing is cheaper.
61
@Norm Spier - the problem is that there are often not many jobs that pay well in those places where the housing is cheaper. Since we end up with astronomical student loans - we need the paychecks offered in more desirable locations.
17
@Norm Spier Have you considered that the housing "crisis" might be a positive pressure towards reducing the country's political polarization along geographical lines? Instead of throwing more money at unit development, in the process making already over-crowded cities truly unlivable, we should allow pressure to push people and industry away from bursting coasts towards regional centers. Those once sustained provincial industry and communities; they can do so again.
8
@Norm Spier. AH and Blair are both right. A huge part of the problem is that we make investment bankers and CEOs the dictators of investment of our collective wealth.
SF, NY, Seattle and DC have too much capital and too many well paying jobs - and thus housing crises - while Detroit and West Virginia languish. We’ve tried tax incentives to woo capital to where it’s needed. It’s time to use tax penalties to force it there.
5
No problem, just don't increase congestion on my roads, or add kids to the local school district....
44
@Casey There is certainly a whole infrastructure issue, not just housing.
14
@Casey After spending 40-50% of after tax income on rent, millennials can't afford to have cars, let alone kids (as the tanking fertility rate suggests). So problem solved? I mean, the population will eventually collapse, and not enough people will be around to care for the elderly or pay into social security, but you'll have nice uncrowded roads and no more annoying children to bother you in your old age.
13
@Casey: I understand your feelings, but they are not just your roads and it's not just your local school district. Like everyone else, you have the option to move somewhere else more to your liking. You also have the alternative to work to make housing opportunities more attractive in places outside your neighborhood.
7
Having spent my career in affordable housing development, it is disheartening to read so many posts from readers who are sadly misinformed about the problem. All programmatic solutions to this problem focus BOTH on expanding supply and providing some kind of rent subsidy. Regardless of what candidates are proposing, initiatives are limited both by public opinion, economics and in many places by a shortage of construction workers. Our current tenant-based rent subsidy program is hindered because, in our current strong rental market, landlords have little incentive to accept vouchers and the red tape that comes with it. But it would be unpopular to offer landlords a rent bonus to incentivize renting to poor people, just as it is unpopular to give poor people money directly to afford full-market rent. No easy answers there. BUT, without creating any new programs, we could triple the size of the housing tax credit program at a cost of an additional $20 billion per year, which would actually make a dent in the supply problem. This program, relatively effectively administered at the state level (and by NYC and Chicago) has a 30-year track record of success by forging public-private partnerships. Can we also do something about getting more young people into the construction trades? Hey, America, not everyone needs to go to a 4-year college to get into the middle class.
72
@Roy Lowenstein
Yours is definitely a regional problem. In my area, there is absolutely no shortage of qualified construction workers. Membership in the 48 unions and district councils belonging the the Los Angeles/Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council tops 100,000.
4
@Frank F: I would think that the members of the Los Angeles/Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council would be glad to support a call for more building and construction trade workers nationwide.
1
@Roy Lowenstein I don’t think the tax credit programs are doing anything. The more money building brings you from the government, the more valuable land becomes. If what you get from the government is compensated by higher land cost, how is that pushing you to do more business (ie creating more supply)?
Now the government can force developers to provide “affordable housing” in exchange of tax rebates, but they will only accept that if the tax credit has more value than the implicit subsidy they are giving to the price-regulated housing recipients. You are in effect subsidizing demand (a big no-no in a market where supply is constrained) at a higher cost than if you were giving money directly to the receivers, while in some cases giving some control to the owners regarding who gets this subsidy (and look at NYC: where boards have a veto right in who gets the subsidized housing in the building, it is not difficult to imagine how the beneficiaries end up being someone’s friend or family, rather than the neediest/most deserving of recipients).
3
The real problem is not a lack of solutions or for that matter a lack of money. Ultimately the real problem is a lack of will or rather a wilfulness not to act on the part of local governments which are largely controlled by realestate interests.
Let's not forget the realestate interests that control local governments want there to be a shortage of housing so as to drive up prices, reduce vacancy levels, and drive up property values.
Everything else is just a bunch of smoke and mirrors combined with token actions used as political talking point but do little to actually solve the problem.
95
This is true of rent stabilization. It’s used to increase rents on market rate units by ReBNY.
4
The real problem, South Of Albany, is that the "market" (cartel) is not even bothering to stabilize their own rents. Since the "market" isn't one, the government should extend rent stabilization to ALL units, so the "invisible hand" gets a long-needed slap on its inconsiderate wrist.
Time will tell if the recent NYS law is enough sanity to get us there. I doubt it, though. Not enough eminent domain to seize units from the worst landlords, for one.
6
I've long thought of ways to build the least expensive housing with the fewest amenities built specifically for those who simply cannot afford the status quo. Homes built for under 10 grand (yes, it's possible) on land basically nobody really wants as long as it's along bus lines, rail lines and/or busy freeways. Take a drive through just about any part of town that's run down with many abandoned homes, factories and warehouses and you'll find plenty of available land sitting fallow. I've been homeless before and would have given just about anything to have even a shed to live in and I did live in an 11x14' shed for over 6 years and did quite fine in it. That shed had electricity and phone service (I added them both) and could easily have had running water and a toilet and shower added onto it if needed for a few hundred bucks. I'm not suggesting everyone move into an 11x14 shed, but a family of 4 certainly don't need 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a "great room", living room, full sized dining room, full basement and a 3 car garage to survive. I grew up in a tiny 4 bedroom home built in the early 60s with a tiny kitchen, a tiny living room, no garage, etc. We all lived in it and did just fine. Mom, dad, two brothers and two sisters..In fact our entire neighborhood at the time consisted of such homes, over 350 homes that are all still standing to this day in Dayton Ohio.
Cheap, small homes can and should be built and sold on the cheap again.
130
@Martino It doesn't have to be tiny or poor quality, but how about modest? When my husband and I were house hunting, we couldn't find anything small that wasn't a run-down crack house priced at $400K. And there were bidding wars for those (note my state). When we stretched our budget (and I got a second job), we could find one that wasn't about to collapse, but it's more house than we wanted.
I'm tired of American excess. I'd like to pay half the price for half the portions in a restaurant. I would love a small house with no granite countertops and a reasonable price tag. Why do we have to be so extra?
52
@Martino
But builders won't build them since they make lots of money on the more expensive house. They certainly have done well the last 10 years, they are the fat cats in town, why would they change that.
15
@Martino: except most buyers DO NOT WANT a tiny home, and with the cost of land...regulations and fees....costly building materials....and profits for builders....there is no way to build housing today that is cheap like it was in the 1950s.
3
We can't simply ask for 'more construction', without very specific guidelines as to what that construction should look like. We've already been allowing for small-scale apartment buildings in certain single-family neighborhoods, and we know how well that went: cheap, ugly, soul-less, cookie-cutter buildings containing 'luxury apartments'.
In NYC, it seems far too many R.E. development projects are given the rubber-stamp, with any anything-goes mentality. There is no long-term planning for how all these projects might negatively impact a neighborhood. No planning for how all the new residents will impact the local public transportation systems. We continue to normalize the ownership of private two-ton vehicles, even in a dense urban area such as NYC. We build all these new apartment buildings, assume the new tenants will move in along with their private vehicles, and then wonder why our streets are clogged, and more pedestrians and cyclists are getting maimed/killed.
Where is the long-term planning? Who is considering the big picture here, and how we want our city to look, feel and function? Apparently it is nowhere to be found.
And why is there once again no talk about help for the middle class? Why must one be dirt-poor in order to receive help with exorbitant rents?
3
Is the problem really that there aren’t enough units or that too many of the units are locked up as investment vehicles for the rich? Seems like the latter is not getting enough attention.
190
@TAL
Report just out on the Toronto market shows almost 40% of condos are not owner occupied.
22
@HammerTime The numbers for new multi-unit construction in Los Angeles are similar. In many cases, units are neither owner occupied nor even renter occupied. They are bought simply to be resold later for a profit. This practice needs to be discouraged through policy disincentives. Building more units will just lead to moneyed investors buying more units for their portfolios. A house should be an investment for the family it houses.
18
@TAL
Excellent point. There should be some sort of residency requirement. At least in desirable locations like NYC, foreign investors drive up prices while letting neighborhoods wither due to lack of foot traffic in local shops. The real estate industry has long been known as a great money laundering opportunity, because if you can pay cash, there are few questions asked about where the cash came from. That needs to change. Of course, that would make the current occupant of the White House very unhappy...
10
Interesting that most of the proposed solutions always come back to federal subsidies. We don't have a shortage of housing in the U.S., we have a shortage of affordably priced housing. As housing is almost exclusively held in the hands of private owners & investors, the incentives are entirely with the owner & investor, raise rents and housing prices to the max. And, there is little trust that government sponsored housing programs is a remedy, given its troublesome & failed history.
And now, the idea is to rewire existing communities, adding density to create additional congestion and related problems which then fall on the local communities to solve.
There are far better ways to go about this issue, starting with increased care for the homeless and rent controls. Why not control investment gains (capital and income) on housing stock, a more immediate and easily regulated approach, rather than taxing and then throwing those funds (once again) towards previously failed strategies?
1
Housing policies must change to encourage more affordable housing near attractive jobs. Otherwise, commuter costs and time wasted will continue to increase. There should also be a focus on individual responsibility for making decisions that match available housing to family needs. That means pursuing educational opportunities and reducing family sizes. Otherwise, the strapped middle class will forever be supporting others who are less motivated and who make irresponsible choices.
1
When Habitat for Humanity builds houses the new owners get a break but they also have had to participate in the building. It is a good model and I do not understand why it cannot be expanded on by the federal or even state governments.
3
investment property should be outlawed. Housing is a universal right, just like health care; food, and income, even for the homeless. No one should be profiting by renting a second property they own.
7
Then there would never be an investment to built that second home and there would be fewer homes available.
9
The second homes, if rentals, would just be converted to LLC’s further adding to the tax benefits they offer.
@SJW I don't have a problem with mom and pop landlords who own one building and treat their tenants kindly. I do have a problem with rapacious landlords and investors. Unhappily the gracious mom and pop landlords are a dying breed.
5
Well after reading the comments I realize that housing will continue to rise. It’s not just the homeless who are affected. I read the real estate section of this paper and I’m just amazed. How can anyone afford a million dollar one bedroom apartment in Harlem?
2
A new thought. There is lots of existing housing but it is located in areas without good jobs. Just take New York State as one example. Syracuse, Utica, Buffalo, Rochester and many other upstate communities have barely 50% of their 1950 populations. Home values are low due to an oversupply, as years of losing jobs and retirees. How can that stock of homes be utilized? First, any family or individual who subsists on government money and not their own labor should be encouraged to move with the offer of rent-fee housing upstate. Second, absolutely no more government subsidies for companies building in areas without existing surpluses of housing! Let them expand where affordable housing already exists! If they build there, the people will follow!
3
Build more housing. Sure. Use new building technique's, smaller spaces (who needs 2000 sq ft for 3 people). Easier building codes , quicker time to OK permits. less cost of permits, reasonable and adjustable mortgages. However the real problem is the neighborhoods. Not in Mine! Its this that is the real obstacle.
I like ideas for encouraging zoning and other local regulatory changes to facilitate the building of more housing. I do not like the proposals for increased subsidies for renters. It is an immutable law of physics that whatever the government subsidizes increases in price. Education, housing, healthcare, etc.
Frankly, I would greatly prefer new federal housing projects to increases housing subsidies. Despite its own problems, at least that housing would work to drive down rents on other housing through competition.
2
Here is Silicon Valley, the home of tech giants like Apple, Google, and others, homeowners from Mt View to Menlo Park to Palo Alto and Cupertino resist new development. Those who enjoy living in single family homes do not want others to enjoy owning a piece of property.
Time after time home owners have pressed city councils to stop the development of new townhomes, condos and apartments. Residents don't want "others" to come in. Today those "others" also work in tech making 6-figures....but didn't buy 20 years ago or came to the valley more recently.
Local governments should not be allowed to stop development. My neighbors and I would love to buy close to work but they are not affordable.
2
@Nina The developers are shoving the costs of the additional infrastructure on the existing homeowners. These people have no budget for that. A vote for dense housing is a vote for poverty and displacement.
You want to change that? Have the developer pay a cut of his profit for the expansion of the sewer& water district, the fire dept, the library and the parks. And with the school tax, make it equitable.....people who live one family per bedroom need to pay more...time for school tax to be 100% state funded.
1
my take is that devoloped nations are experiencing pop. decline so maybe in the near future housing will open up. Maybe even these mega mansions being built in many communities will eventually be subdivided into multiplexes. Of course conservative zoning laws could squelch that.
Warren's plan to provide money to local governments that increase affordable housing is the best plan. Tax incentives do not help most low-income people. They need to live somewhere affordable now. Let's kill the tax breaks for dividends and the spending on the military-industrial complex and take care of Americans. If rich Republicans, and Democrats for that matter, think that the poverty issue won't hit them at home, they are wrong. People will rise up and rebel. Crime will get worse. The GOP can ban the ballot for immigrants, minorities, and the poor, but if they cannot get leaders for effective change, then change will come in the form of rebellion. What would the GOP leaders prefer: Change at the ballot box or armed change coming to their front doors?
2
Several social disrupters are at work: population increase, immigration, wage deflation, job loss through automation, rural flight, overcrowding in metro areas... . We need to address them all at once. Here is a base plan:
Install a (proposed) annual guaranteed income for all adults - but add an incentive package tied to a willingness to move from metro areas to rural areas, where affordable housing either exists or can be build cheaply, and where population increases would be a positive thing.
Now, housing is not the only issue in rural America - medical services, schools, infrastructure, etc., are all in need of help. The influx of money through the guaranteed income program would make a significant difference in rural communities' abilities to provide these things.
And this migration back to rural America could help repair the deep rift that is infecting our nation.
Just saying...
6
@Pierre D. Robinson, B.F., W.S.
Alas, I agree, but the Yimby people have made the determination that we all must migrate to dense, urban lifestyles, period. If you question their conclusions, you are instantly relegated into their obstructionist greedy nimby folder. There is no middle ground.
1
Meh, I had hopes from reading this piece that there may be a significant attitude shift among the progressives that would allow for more workable solutions to this. But, no, the great majority of the opinions expressed below focus on morality-based class combat indulging in fantasies of the "ultimate victory" over the wealthy. Solve gentrification by driving away rich people (re-cripple the tax base), triple-tax investors (so you get less investment), enforce hard caps on rents (again, less investment). Progressives are not really serious about addressing this problem, otherwise they would stop this self-indulgent chatter and start connecting the economic dots. So, more of the same for now, see you on the ramparts.
7
@George They don't want to solve the immigration problem either. There are reasons why people don't vote for Dems.
3
So what is your solution to rising homelessness?
2
Carrots and sticks. My state, Oregon, just abolished single family zoning. Clueless on the details (ok, I skimmed the article), living in one of those middle class single family neighborhoods, I’m not opposed to higher densities, per se. But the concerns raised in the legislature, especially parking, hopefully will be addressed locally with new building requirements.
Overall, I view these carrots as full-employment opportunities for investment companies, developers, builders. Absentee landlords will have little concern for the small problems of density housing....litter, barking dogs, weedy yards (ok, ok, we have a dandelion lawn...), etc. crumbling sidewalks, sidewalks blocked by weekly trash bins (that stay for days), basketball hoops (now two-three every block or so) on the sidewalks.....and parked cars on the streets so dense already you can’t see traffic and can barely get through if another car is approaching.
And of course I didn’t read anything about opening up the 100s of single crop acres for rural housing, no larger carrot for small town development, for better transportation from those small towns....to urban jobs.
Millions will be made. But will our sidewalks be....walkable? Being the test case, the lab rat- we’ll see.
3
Want to expend the availability of affordable rental housing? OK, try this:
1. expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.
2. soften the limitation on using the New Markets Tax Credit for the development of residential rental housing
3. expand and make permanent the New Markets Tax Credit
4. encourage States to adopt state programs comparable to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, New Markets Tax Credit, and Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit
1
While I certainly agree with the thesis of this piece that simply building more market rate housing is an important step in addressing housing affordability, I also think this approach (as well as approaches based on subsidies, rent control, etc.) ignores the true root of the problem. The real reason there is such a mismatch between the geographies where economic opportunity exists (the NE, N. CA, Seattle, etc.) and geographies where housing affordability exists (most of the Midwest) is because so much market power and wealth is concentrated among so few companies.
The FANGs, the BB banks, Sand Hill Rd VCs, Microsoft - this small number of companies have a near stranglehold on our economy and therefore a near monopoly on economic opportunity. This means that housing in geographies within commuting distance of the headquarters of these companies becomes a near priceless commodity. Break up these companies, and allow competition to emerge from under the crushing weight of monopoly. Then watch opportunity spring up in cities that are not NY, SF, Boston, LA, or Seattle. The housing market will react accordingly once every ambitious 20-30 something no longer has to cram themselves into the same few square miles in order to have a shot at "getting ahead".
8
Yes, yes, yes, to more affordable housing to those who have historically not been able to afford a home of their own.
3
So, no more wide lawns, large lots, privacy and quiet.
Great platform for
Dems to run on if they want to reelect Trump
7
A great public transportation system does wonders for increasing affordable housing.
15
Among its laudable recommendations, the Times’ editorial neglects to include what could be the real game-changer. An article in the Wall Street Journal last week reported on a surge in investment in new construction technology, including automated processes. Goldman Sachs in 2018 invested $6B (yes, that is a “B”) in this field – a 60-fold increase from 2014 – and is on track to exceed that amount this year.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/momentum-builds-for-automation-in-construction-11562073426
Like other industrial sectors, factory-produced modular systems have the potential to save time and money, and simultaneously increase quality. Government agencies at the federal and municipal level could steer innovation towards affordable housing by providing large-scale development opportunities for promising construction technology start-ups.
2
It is so nice to see someone discuss this problem once in a while and actually mention its existence in Dem areas.
Just outlaw camping on the sidewalk and build some housing.
LA has tens of thousands of empty units and more buildings open up every other week. Yet homelessness is increasing. Why?
Just follow the money.
Nearly all new construction is luxury rentals, hardly any are condos and affordable ones are simply not being built. Rent-controlled buildings are even being destroyed to do this.
Plus there’s a tie to the NYTimes excellent coverage of vacant storefronts: an artificially manipulated market consisting of high rents set by building owners and developers in the hopes that they can get more than what a “normal” market rate would be. With stores, if rent is too high they can simply close shop for good. But with housing, displaced people have to end up somewhere. Here in LA it’s either skid row or a tent under a freeway bridge.
Has nobody bothered to connect the dots between the loss of affordable housing and the founding of AirBNB 11 years ago? Looking back, we can now see the early seeds of today’s housing crisis in 2008 just as that startup was forming in San Francisco (the first American city to be decimated by it).
Interestingly, in February of 2008 the LA Weekly did a story which eerily predicted this crisis over a decade ago:
https://www.laweekly.com/city-halls-density-hawks-are-changing-l-a-s-dna/
The biggest question is why the NY and LA Times are afraid to truly investigate the ACTUAL reasons for the affordable housing crisis. Is it perhaps that the developers and their deep pockets contribute to their bottom line somehow?
11
@Gareth I agree the actual reasons aren't fully investigated.
In my area, its not air b-n-b. Its the amount of outside workers brought in for specific jobs and taking all the rental housing, one family per bedroom or barn. The rest of the community can't afford the cost of the health care or the schooling for these families, but they do get the bill instead of the employer.
1
I did not see a reference to reforming the current prevalent low income housing tax credit program which is being used even for senior housing here in San Diego (either for entire buildings or designated units in market rate buildings) to make the units affordable not just less than market rate. Rents in these buildings can start at $700 and go as high as $950 which can be half or more of a qualified( less than $34,000 a year income) tenant's Social Security income check.
Also, as noted by others, government agencies might sink considerable funds into senior affordable housing high rise "towers" and low rise "gardens". Yet there appears to be little if any government oversight or influence about how the funds are spent except for basic physical plant safety considerations. As a result, for example, resident care services and isolation prevention programs can vary greatly. Some buildings might have a full-time in-house social worker, others a part-time social worker only available by appointment on one day. Some buildings might have once a month social activities only if residents organize them, others might have full-time social directors with daily get-togethers and outings. Some buildings might arrange for outside service agencies to bring in amenities like surplus food distributions and health classes, others send their residents to senior centers for the same.
1
What more affordable housing. Solution the state picks up 100% of the average cost of educating each student. This makes lower priced homes more competitive in towns and cities. Since Property taxes account for a sizable amount of any cities education budget, suburbs prefer expensive homes
and business over apartments and affordable housing, They and want and need to produce a maximum tax revenue. If the cost of education was pushed to the state, cities would not be as desperate for tax revenues. Affordable housing would not be seen as a tax burden.
3
Some day someone will connect the issue of unchecked population growth coupled to uncontrolled immigration to our dearth of affordable housing.
It's a relatively straightforward matter of supply & demand.
The irony of this imbalance is that America has many formerly bustling rural communities that are losing inhabitants every year, and could dearly use an infusion.
Unfortunately, too many of these new immigrants are heading to cities already teeming with economically challenged residents (and thus in no need of cheap labor willing to undermine prevailing wage standards and minimum wage laws).
If government insists on encouraging / enabling endless population growth, then government must be vigilant that our stocks of affordable housing keep pace, by whatever means necessary. At of now, it is not fulfilling this role.
As it is, we have loads of luxury housing going up all around New York (and I suspect other metropolitan areas), including neighborhoods where it is completely out of character and thus of no use whatsoever.
I watched a large building go up a block from my subway station for the last two years, only to discover once their promotional materials became available that their cheapest unit would be far above what most lower or middle income residents could pay. And despite the sheer scale of the building, the developer did not see fit to build interior parking for his residents, thus guaranteeing that a challengin parking situation would only get worse.
10
In cities like New York and San Francisco, building more housing does more to exacerbate the housing plight of the poor and the middle class than relieve it, because the new housing is totally unaffordable. 80/20 subsidies (80% market rate, 20% affordable) just increase the wealthy population. Should be at least 50/50.
Also, the candidates seem to be concerned with rentals for families. What about the single elderly?
So new approach? I don't think so. Builders won't construct affordable housing unless forced.
6
Writing from Seattle, epicenter of these issues. Building more units alone has not increased the supply of affordable housing. Developers have replaced existing affordable rentals and owned units with luxury condos and larger houses targeting the influx of tech workers with six figure starting salaries. This resulted in an explosion in the homelesss population, and invasion by corporate and foreign buyers ("we pay cash for your house as is"). The city council recently approved construction of small apartment bldgs on single family lots, but refused to limit their use for AirBnB short term rentals, or to keep existing requirement that owner must reside on property. This will result in units that rent at market rate. To ensure that more building actually yields more affordable units requires incentives and disincentives from local and state government, and subsidies for renters and buyers where necessary.
9
Singapore has the best affordable housing policy ever devised. The government contracts with building companies to build owner occupied apartments with the HVAC infrstructure, but no fittings. You buy the apartment, EMPTY.... and fit it out how you want and when you can. There are shops, restaurants, and supermarkets on the ground floor, along with schools, community centers, and transportation hubs.
4
The real estate deduction, called, "smoothing," carved out specifically for real estate developers, has allowed big real estate owners, to write off deductions, so the actually pay no taxes, whether the Trump organization, or the Kushner holdings. Neither one, has probably paid any taxes for several decades. When you have lobbyists that are able to get Congress to put their wants into bills, that end up in the over 70,000 pages of the IRS Tax Code, then you as Congress, are responsible for the increase in both rents, and the cost of real estate for the average American. If these type of deductions, and borrowed money didn't exist, the type of buildings being put up, wouldn't be more and more high end real estate across the country.
8
I'm sure most Americans would much rather return to the situation in the 50's and 60's where every working man could afford to buy a house of his own from the wages he made.
This is what happens when you increase the labor supply through immigration while labor demand decreases through the combined forces of automatisation and trade with low-income countries. Real wages go down. Living standards decrease. Social unrest follows.
Some people seem to think they can save the situation through socialist reforms, but I doubt it. What both your country and mine needs is an increased demand for its labor, a return to a situation where workers are paid enough to be able to buy the houses, cars and other stuff they make for themselves. That's how you get the wheels of the economy rolling and that's the only thing likely to produce happy, contented citizens.
Handouts and vouchers are humiliating. No able-bodied person should have to live like a charity case.
22
Japan is one model of how to control rental costs. Tokyo, which is still growing, despite the overall population of Japan declining, allows property owners to tear down existing structures and build new, higher ones and prohibits zoning laws that would impede this. The Japanese federal government can also overrule local governments' zoning laws. What Japan is strict about are building codes because of the danger of earthquakes. New buildings are built to even stricter codes than old ones. The increase in rental prices in Japan from 1995-2015 was near 0% while in San Francisco it was 230% and in London 400%. In 2014, Tokyo,with a population of only 13 million had over 140,000 housing starts: California, with a population of 40 million, had 87,000 housing starts and England with a population of 54 million had 137,000 housing starts. If you've ever been to Tokyo, you know that it had this many housing starts with no available land. All of them involved tearing down older structures and building newer ones. Americans wouldn't like the federal government overruling local laws, but Warren's and others' incentives rather than puniishments would be acceptable. Most of American cities, particularly California ones where I live, are zoned primarily for single family detached houses. In also drive by areas every day where hotels and businesses are in multi-story high rises but next-door apartments are four stories or less. Our current zoning restrictions don't match our needs.
1
@Casey Dorman Irrelevant, in that Japans populations is and will continue to shrink noteably. No comparison to USA.
1
Building more housing units without simultaneously expanding the transit routes and facilities which new residents must use to reach work or shopping facilities can be counter-productive. The same can be said of sewage facilities, water and electricity supplies, access to hospitals, schools, etc., etc. etc.
Anyone who has lived through such periods of infrastructure imbalance -- as in many suburban development areas -- can attest to this. We might be wise first to seek guidance from places, such as Singapore, that think things through before it acts.
6
What this editorial completely misses is the cost of land, especially in job-rich, denser cities & suburbs where affordable housing is most needed, but speculation drives up the cost of land & housing. A solution that should be a key tool to achieve wide affordability is support for many more community land trusts (CLTs) run by boards controlled by community members. CLTs own the land and use 99-year renewable land leases that restrict how much housing on that land (often developed & managed by others) can cost & be resold for. CLTs can also foster other community-determined land uses (e.g., gardens, farming, affordable business space). They've succeeded in various cities and states. A rural CLT in Georgia will be 50 years old in October. And urban CLTs in Boston, NYC, Burlington VT, & elsewhere have demonstrated success & longevity in affordable housing. But CLTs receive far too little government support to be scaled up to be the big part of the solution that they can be by taking large amounts of land out of speculation so housing & other community uses on the land can be affordable in perpetuity.
2
One serious potential problem: supposed federal, state or local governments take action that has the effect of making more housing more affordable. Isn't it probable that these programs will be ended or cut back drastically at the first change of government? And isn't it likely that changes of government of the type will in fact happen?
1
Progressives never learn. It was less than 20 years ago that Rep. Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd assured us that by encouraging lending institutions to loosen credit terms so that home ownership among minorities and low income folks could be expanded would not create a problem. Then the mortgage market collapse of 2008 happened.
Similarly, Barack Obama thought those "greedy bankers" were exploiting the student loan market so he decided to have the federal government perform that function. Today, we have $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt...that is to be simply written off at taxpayer expense if the Democrats' presidential candidates have their way.
14
@Tony Davis I think yo need to research the history of student loans in the US. Obama had next to nothing to do with student loan debts. More GOP Obama Hysteria. Sorry you also need to brush up on how banks and Non Banks made and bundled loans and resold them.
1
The federal government should stop giving money to cites with rent control and other programs that just serve to destroy the housing stock.
Federal subsidies to these cities are like insurance companies giving rebuilding money to professional arsonists.
2
Section 8 subsidies don't help when landlords won't take them. There is a senior housing project being built nearby with what is called "project based vouchers" - which is to say, all the apartments will be subsidized. While this is a boon to those who will get in, and many pay only a few hundred dollars a month - the rent that will be charged to the federal government via the housing authority is another matter entirely. At $2,200 a month for a 500 sq foot apartment, the developer and it's investors will be making out like bandits. Not only that, even in our incredibly expensive county, $2,200 for a 500 sq foot apartment is not on the cheap side in our and some other areas. It is offensive beyond words that this is really a slush fund for the developers... That said, they didn't design this crazy method for building.
Oh yes, and to add salt to the wound, unlike virtually anywhere else in the country, we can't have local preferences, and must market to low income minorities in adjacent counties. Which is to say, virtually no one from the small town where this project is being built will get a chance to live there and "age in place."
15
In Chicago there is much empty acreage, but largely in inner city neighborhoods, with slight gentrification going on, because the CTA lines are close by. Expecting to force low rise apartment buildings in staunchly, largely white single family neighborhoods is unfair, and very limited.
Induce builders with financial rewards for rebuilding in the aforementioned neighborhoods, setting aside a percentage for subsidized rentals (or purchases), but make them attractive enough to bring in more middle class people, which then attracts the supermarkets, banks, and other necessities of life.
Another idea? Know how much empty retail stores blight every town and city across America? Get rid of some of them, using smart urban planning, and rebuild those "main" streets with residential housing, including townhouses, that will promote settlement by a mix of population, and ages.
3
Large corporations that attract thousands and thousands of workers to a given region for employment opportunities need to play a more active role in managing the crowding, congestion and unaffordable housing market they create. Do junior millennial tech workers, and fledgling finance professionals really want to cough up 40% of their after tax income on housing while being screamed at by pious NIMBYS? No, no they don't. But they have to go where the jobs are, and right now for many industries that means being concentrated in coastal cities where the housing market has been transformed into a competitive thunderdome of despair.
8
So great of you to propose that the US government tax away our earnings in an effort to manipulate market forces in the housing market. What could possibly go wrong with such a great idea?
6
Without rent control, any subsidies & increased construction are worthless.
I live in an area experiencing explosive population growth. All sorts of housing is being built rapidly all over the area, including multiple enormous apartment complexes. There are also a large number of duplex & single family homes of all sizes for rent.
But here's the rub. Rents are skyrocketing, even for old rental units where some residents have lived for decades. Elderly, disabled, poor, and - yes - middle class people are being evicted because their rents have doubled in a year. Their incomes have not doubled, but the rents have, and rents here continue to climb. And all that new construction? Jobs are coming to this area but most are NOT the sort or jobs that allow an individual or a family to afford $2000 or more per month for rent. Want to buy a home? Those prices are going crazy too.
Rent control. Talk about that FIRST. Every other suggestion is worthless.
7
@Jane Rent control destroys value by disincentivizing construction and proper maintenance of existing rental housing. In New York, my home town, it was also abused terribly, with people hanging onto rent controlled apartments they weren't actually living in for years, profiting enormously from illegal subletting while the landlord got a pittance. It put a stranglehold on the housing supply and drove up the rents for unstabilized units; it also discouraged home ownership on the part of middle class people who could have afforded to buy at one point, but are now closed out of buying by ridiculous prices. The new regulations are a step in the wrong direction and another nail in the city's coffin, in my opinion. They will exacerbate the shortage, not alleviate it.
By all means, let's do something about homelessness, but more regulation isn't the answer.
1
@Jane Rent Control is something that increases overall housing costs for the bulk of people, while benefitting a small subsection. Economists have throughly debunked any net positive aspects of rent control. Terrible suggestion.
Mitchell-Lama is one of the most successful developments for middle income housing and has thousands of apartments. It should be the model for middle income housing. Creating affordable housing should not be this hard. The rich enclaves and the attitudes of the inhabitants are a big part of the problem.
6
@Kate McLeod Yes, a big part of the problem. Impoverishing those social parasites through confiscatory taxation would solve that problem and ensure prosperity for all the "real" people.
Nobody is talking about “impoverishing” multi millionaires. What do you have against housing for the middle class? Now in NYC real estate developers get nice tax subsidies for building still more housing for the rich, pushing out what remains of middle class neighborhoods
2
The problem is that places with lots of room for new housing are competing with each other to be the low-tax jurisdiction that gets as many big, expensive houses as possible, requiring as few social services as possible, so they can keep taxes low. Low taxes in turn don't support building out the infrastructure that would allow for denser housing, even if current residents would accept it. Some jurisdictions which have gotten particularly wealthy in the property boom, mostly older inner-ring suburbs, have tried to do the right (and profitable) thing by redeveloping failed malls and parking lots as denser housing and town centers, but not enough to affect affordability at the population level. It will take action at the metropolitan, state, or federal level to set the conditions for affordable housing to expand beyond the cramped confines of big-city boundaries.
4
Thanks for this article. There's so many candidates that it's very helpful to know that I can take Booker, Castro and Warren off the table.
The solution to housing is not building more of it in already overpopulated cities. We can't keep growing forever. The solution is a combination of rent control, living wage laws, and overpopulated cities stemming the influx of new residents, along with investing in dowtown areas in cities that are currently losing residents because of a lack of job opportunities, cultural opportunities or both.
Ruining the quality of life in what have been our most livable and appealing cities, many of which, like Portland, simply do not have room for any more people, is a wretchedly short-sighted proposition.
The idea that we can simply grow endlessly is a childish and remarkably ignorant fantasy. That's true on every level, and the wisdom, or lack thereof, with which we handle this situation on a city level is going to be a very good indicator as to whether or not we are going to be capable of doing what it takes to address it on a global level.
12
Portland has lots and lots of room for more people. The Urban Growth Boundary was a great idea, but it's been expanded so often that it never really functioned as intended. I say this as someone living in an established neighbourhood rapidly filling up with apartments and condos. There's plenty of room for more - most of Portland is single-family homes on small lots that would be better served by condos/apartments and parks.
1
@Evil Overlord
Once that farmland is developed it is gone forever. And where will the influx of children attend school? Most of the schools in Portland are already over capacity.
5
@Kristin Yeah, I've seen what's happened to Porland, but it doesn't look like it's because of too MUCH housing. The problem there stems from a politics that rewards avoidance and cowardice concerning the homeless residents. But I guess spreading the pain around like that is good progressive politics, even if it does gut your business-supported tax base.
2
Building more housing to meet increased demand only works to solve our housing affordability crisis when more expensive housing “trickles down” to those paying lower rents as the rich move into the new housing. As many have already noted, this doesn’t always work if the rich buy multiple dwellings, foreign investors invest but don’t live in new real estate, or developers focus on building luxury units primarily (which is much of the new supply). The National Low Income Housing coalition and others recommend building housing for very low income residents instead to foster the “trickling up” of units from them. In this way, those who are priced out of housing (where the need is greatest as indicated in higher vacancy rates) are served by the market first.
5
The mismatch between private sector and government is highlighted by the housing crisis. Private enterprise is unwilling or unable to meet housing demand in particular parts of the country and government, during periods when it particularly favors marketplace solutions is doing little to solve these big problems.
It is very expensive to increase density in urban areas, especially in these times. Reasons include the demand for well designed housing to recreate the comforts that single family housing dwellers enjoy, follow building codes and low income housing requirements, build for energy efficiency and meet the demands for upgraded community benefits . Add to these factors are the cost of land and construction in urban areas and the necessary upgrades to infrastructure ((which is ignored and thus everyone suffers) and services to meet the needs of increased density of people going about their daily lives.
I believe we can get more housing on the market by investing far, far more than we do in fast, clean, convenient and affordable public transportation in less dense areas surrounding cities. There is room for upzoning and costs can be better contained than in highly dense areas.
Growth industries could do much more to relieve the financial and emotional stress of tightly packed urban areas by investing in communities that have greater capacity for population growth rather than continuing to cram even more people in already built out urban areas.
8
Making money from a human right to shelter is what has caused the crisis: those investors need to be brought to heel and taxed and more housing options made available - co-ops, co-housing - and not the trendy expensive sort.
3
@pealass Living in NYC or San Francisco or Toronto is not a human right. There are many cities in Canada (my grandparents are from Canada so I know this) that are extremely affordable, but not as trendy as Toronto. Thunder Bay comes to mind......not a pretty or trendy city, but there are jobs and housing is cheap. The same goes for the USA....lots of inexpensive housing in cities in upstate NY for example, but people want to live in NYC. It's not a human right to live in expensive areas. There are affordable areas to live in and at least in the USA, there are jobs available everywhere now.
17
@Hexagon
So I am trying to relocate to a more affordable area, and yes, there are jobs! The kicker is that the jobs don't pay enough to live in the affordable area. I found a job in one small town that was professional and the pay was less than half that I make in the city AND the housing was about 10% cheaper. So low pay makes it even less affordable.
My city is rapidly growing unaffordable as we take in escapees from NYC and the coast; they drive up housing prices, and the only people sitting pretty are the ones who already own homes.
So yes, I could move to rural NY. The odds are slim that I'd find a job in my field. So I could take a lower wage job. But I'd be in the same boat of not being able to afford life.
Basically, the middle class is being priced out everywhere.
19
Are you suggesting that NYC, San Francisco, Toronto do not need workers? Bus drivers, firemen, sanitation workers, light bulb changers, wait staff, retail clerks, office workers, fast food workers, teachers, home health aides, nannies, cooks, delivery men, etc.
Where are workers supposed to live?
3
Great to read as I live in a city that is growing too rapidly with rents and housing that is unaffordable to many and has resulted in a number of homeless, traffic delays as there is no public transportation here as taxes and money go toward the aimless idea of more and more roads. Some will be tolled, with great protests from the public, but ideas for more public transportation such as the rail in place but not available in many places to the rapid rail for intra-transportation needs are essential. Subsidized housing must be part of the discussion to keep pace with growth. Castro would be an excellent choice for the Democratic nominee with his background in housing, his tenure as the mayor of a major city in Texas, and his good sense for important issues.
5
I will in all likelihood never need a single family home, since I expect to be a lifelong single person. Coming up on 35, I've started to occasionally imagine what comes after living with roommates in NYC. (I'm in book publishing . . . pay is modest.) Please do make some little apartments in greener places for me and my cohort. I think our numbers are growing!
6
"The ideas come in two flavors: subsidies for renters, and efforts to increase construction."
BUT there's a 3rd solution, taxation.
We could solve the affordability problem by taxing investors at a higher rate than normal residents. Foreign and non-resident property owners should be paying a higher property tax rate than regular people. A portion of profits derived from rent should be taxed. Lots of solutions in the taxation area.
Subsidizing renters will only make rents go up (and landlords greedier).
7
@Studioroom
They already do. Only primary homes have any tax benefits. I think you mean, they should discourage "flipping" and investors driving up prices? That will never happen because investors are rich - and America only does what rich people want.
3
@Studioroom You get less of what you tax.
@Studioroom In fact, cut out foreign owners entirely! Many countries make it difficult for foreigners to own property. If you don't live in the property at least 6 months out of the year, you don't get to own it. Claw back time! Start with the Trump towers!
1
Subsidizing housing due to high cost of shelter. Sounds like student loans for high cost of education. More money sloshing around does not cause costs to decline. It enriches the property owners. On the other hand. If subsidies are provided to augment construction, it is unfair to the renters because it is the buyers who get more advantages.
5
Government run by either party really hasn't wanted to be in the big scale housing business for a very long time and good luck getting something through the Senate that ultimately might be in the hundreds of billions when the full price tag comes in, but I suspect that there is plenty of private money available for construction bonds if the tax treatment was favorable and interest on them were high enough. Add in a government guarantee and the money would be there in an incredibly short period of time with all the boomers looking for a vehicle akin to the 4-5% CD that once upon a time roamed the land
Why insist on building the housing in the overcrowded blue state cities? We don't have room, water, or infrastructure for more people. Rural areas and middle American cities are losing population. Move jobs to those areas and the people will follow. Use the power of the federal government to give loans or tax relief to small companies or individuals willing to open businesses in those areas. Better yet, disconnect health insurance to employment thereby leveling the playing field for new and small businesses. Big corporations--usually located in big cities--offer health insurance. Individuals with a good idea can't afford to start a business in part because they must remain glued to a corporation to keep their health insurance. Similarly, small businesses can't afford to subsidize health care for their employees.
12
@MKV
The reason blue states and cities have this problem is that companies can’t lure top educated talent to red hat country. People don’t want to be subjected to the small mindedness and bigotry in those communities.
3
come to LA where construction is thriving. and where developers couldn't possibly afford to build new housing for the poor when millennials will pay $4k a month for a one bedroom. and where every wealthy homeowner will say the same thing to low income housing in their neighborhood: NIMBY
3
The market will build naturally affordable apartments if we let them - they are called “micro units.” Small units often under 400 sq feet with shared spaces are part of the Tiny House movement. If built in a walkable/bikeable/transit adjacent neighborhood, seniors and struggling workers can forgo a car - which costs ~ $12,000/yr. to own, insure, and gas up. There isn’t a program in the world that puts $12k/yr in the pocket of people at no cost to government. Car free neighborhoods are magical places to live - tourists travel the world to visit them - Amsterdam, Barcelona, Italian and French villages. Car free tiny living is affordable, healthier, free to tax payers, and addresses climate change. It’s not for everyone and won’t solve everything, but it could make a huge dent. How do we get there? Cities have to zone for it. That’s all.
3
@Lindsay Sturman
I live in a walkable, transit friendly neighbourhood and houses go for $300,000 over asking. I could find a house in a city 3 hours from here, but I would need a car, or at least electric bike. It is not easy to find the perfect matching - walkable/affordable! French village, maybe, but moving to another nation isn't like being a tourist. Love the idea of magical tho'.
3
It’s terrible - and you’re right - we need to build car free neighborhoods in city centers. Barcelona created them with Superblocks. Cities have so much parking and under utilized land - it’s possible to create car free blocks and even neighborhoods if the will and vision were there:
https://twitter.com/lindsayjs/status/1111030514851303424?s=21
It's amazing how bent out of shape this country has become creating more and more failed, disastrous, corrupt government programs in insane attempts to somehow correct or compensate for drastic reduction of incomes taxes on the rich started int the Reagan era Republicans which have fundamentally undermined and destabilized the economy ever since.
Not one of the ones mentioned here would solve anything, as anyone and their grandmother already knows.
6
I agree the solution to the affordable housing crisis is to build more housing. Supply and demand works for homes the same as soybeans.
But given some of the arguments we've seen from progressive liberals and as set forth in this article, it appears that liberals want to prioritize something approaching social engineering over the basic issue of building out greater supply (see the discussion on "economic diverse neighborhoods").
I think more credence should be given to the right of Americans to live in that gated community or buy into a planned neighborhood apart from low rent apartments. Let people vote with their feet.
I definitely don't agree the Federal government should get involved in micromanaging the economic makeup of Bronxville or Highland Park.
If you want my support, drop the social engineering. I'd support budgeting tens of billions to start building affordable housing in affordable neighborhoods.
8
"The plans for rent subsidies reflect a tendency among the crowded field of Democratic candidates to behave as if the election were an auction in which the highest bidder will claim the nomination."
This statement best captures the 2020 Democratic primary - especially between the progressive Warren, Booker, Harris, and Castro.
How much can be given away in freebies or subsidies? How much can be upped in taxes to pay for it? What's the cutoff for who receives the bennies?
This is no way to run a railroad.
6
We have enough housing, we just don't have an economically equitable society. There are many people who have homes that are used as seasonal/short-term rentals. There are many homes that are only occupied for a few months out of the year. There are many homes that are far larger than they need to be, that could accommodate many more people.
4
@Leone Are you saying that the government needs to move me, a single person, out of my 3 bedroom condo because I have too much space according to you? Or do you believe that I should be forced to take on roommates? I love where I live and love my space and worked very hard to have it. One bedroom is for me to sleep in, by the way, one is my office and one is a guest room which might be used eventually for my mother to live in when she can no longer care for herself.
10
@Hexagon Believe it: there are people who in fact do want to tell you where and how you can live. They have a plan; just ask them. And they would implement eminent domain in a heartbeat if given a chance.
3
@Hexagon I'm saying a lack of housing stock is not the problem, wealth inequality is the problem. I'm saying that no one should be homeless when there are plenty of homes to live in. Just as no one should go hungry when we have more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet. No, of course the government should not take over your space. But we should also not be in a situation where billionaires own multiple, giant, lavish homes around the world that are not occupied for most of the time, while many are sliding into homelessness and unable to pay for their own roof over their own head.
4
We don't need subsidies. We need more units. Government just needs to get out of the way. Massachusetts is a great example. So much land is unused and belongs to government. City Hall, an eyesore, sits on prime land that is just a sea of concrete. Long Island (Massachusetts) sits with rotting beachfront government buildings. Just build.
1
New York City has been adding thousands of units every year for decades, during which time prices have only ever gone up. Look at Hudson Yards, dozens of 40-60 story rental properties in Long Island City, a dozen buildings near 42nd street on the far west side, etc.
So long as demand vastly outstrips supply, this will always be an issue.
5
But new building in NYC is for the rich. Many of those new units in Hudson Yards are empty investment properties.
@Zejee
No it's not. LIC new housing is for people that work for say, Google...and get paid $100, 000 to stare at a computer and pretend they are doing something. Google doesn't need most emplyees to function, but it needs them to "look good" for stock price, bragging rights. I know, it's my great niece, 22 years old, her 1st job. Spends her working day on social media.
1
I'm an architect in San Francisco paying $5000 a month rent (I split it with my partner). The rent is horrifically high and, guess what, its below market rate!!
As an architect I am fully aware that my profession "leads" the economy, unfortunately. Basically, my entire 30 years career thus far, when times are good folks build, and when times are bad architects are the canary in the coal (or gold) mine.
When you add in ancillary businesses the Design and Construction Industry employs most of the economy, hands down. Not surprising when you consider that virtually every other industry in the country uses the buildings created by the Design and Construction fields.
In these United States we need to formalize this relationship and create a Design and Construction Industry that is building and rebuilding 24/7.
Indeed, Construction remains one of the most polluting industries as well and a leading contributor to Climate Change. We need a moon shot of transformation in the industry and a government that both understands the necessity of more and more housing, the rebuilding of unsafe housing , and government's fundamental role in all this as a result of adequate taxation of the very rich.
4
How can anyone get excited by this supposedly new development when the problem of unaffordable housing has been critical for more than thirty years ( perhaps 50 years in NYC ) if not before ?
In fact here in NYC where Mayor Koch and others and even the State and Federal Governments have implemented initiatives like requiring affordable housing , or tax credits tied to new construction we have seen the problem get worse and worse .
One phenomena that has not been subject to these efforts is the small construction and rehabilitation of single family and small units that the Illegal Immigration and low cost labor that has transformed even former so called ghettos . Once free to make improvements these former properties all become " Luxury " in their marketing and pricing .
So , any future initiatives need to address this hole in efforts akin to the hole in the picture .
Thanks for this thoughtful piece. The expectations for single family house are partly an artifact of the post world war 2 economic boom. Multi-generational living was a common before that.
Let's build decent quality four-plexes -- apartments and also condos -- and other similar multi-family structures, that include well-designed shared space, for livability and community.
6
@Becca Please. The good old days when Grandma and Uncle John and the orphaned niece all lived together in one house with Mom and Dad also came without electronic music, cars for everyone, and therapy dogs being shoved down everyone's throats. Forcing apartment buildings into single-family neighborhoods in 2019 will make our metropolitan areas look and feel like Mexico City. The wish to blue sky these schemes isn't persuasive.
2
TAX the rich and cut out half of the defense budget. Get the money out of politics, and make political bribery illegal, punishable by long terms in prison, not fines. We'll be able to do all the right things for our people, and the rich , unfortunately, still be filthy rich, and defense budget will still be bigger than anyone else's.
13
One of the problems with housing subsidies is that it encourages the rise of the cost of housing. Part of the reason for the tremendous rise in medical and dental costs is the availability of medical and dental insurance. What I pay now for medical after insurance is close to what I paid long ago without insurance (inflation adjusted). I.e., the cost to the consumer is what the market can bear. If someone else picks up a large part of the cost, doctors and dentists can charge more.
The better answer is more supply.
2
Developers in Chicago appear to only be interested in building “luxury” apartments and “luxury” residences, priced accordingly.
5
s, trump has unleashed a multitude of hud vouchers, and you need to look at this.
"Increasing the demand for housing without increasing the supply, however, tends to drive up prices. " Expel the 11-22 million illegal immigrants and significantly reduce the number of legal immigrants to reduce prices for housing for American citizens. Even the nytimes agrees.
9
@Marigrow
Immigration policy is sorely in need of a major overhaul. A combination of skilled workers, political refugees and not just from central America, and those with the grit to work in agriculture, training to be included. Cutting out all immigration will further exacerbate the top heavy aging population, and fewer younger workers to pay for social security and medicare taxes. That will not solve our problems.
Get rid of the unnecessary retail space, converting some stores into apartments, and/or rebuilding the space. Bet some of the owners of long unrented retail centers would be happy.
4
Subsidies are giveaways to landlords and bankers. Indeed, giving renters more money to pay more rent is political nuts and crackers and salted nuts. The "Opinion" clearly identifies the cause of housing affordability: there is not enough housing units. And lack of supply is driving up demand. The problem to solve is: How to increase the stock of affordable housing?
Answer: get more or better land bases into the housing market, allow construction of more types of units, and do a makeover of the socio-economic communities away from urban concentration to rural distribution. More land bases means redevelop the cities. More types of units means quarters that are portable or tiny residences or similar. There is your solution. Get intuit.
1
The editorial board urges more supply of housing? The board also applauded recent rent control laws in NY that sharply reduced the value of such affordable housing by imposing punitive rent increases below the rate of inflation on landlords, in essence demanding that existing landlords be the ones to subsidize housing affordability. That works short term, long term it sends the message that you would be crazy to invest in affordable rental housing because it is just too convenient to placate voters at the expense of landlords. Sorry, the market is rational and when an asset class like housing is singled out for regulation in this way the results are predictable, investors will flee. Good luck having the private sector step in to solve the crisis — when the government seizes your property or controls it so that its value is diminished the market participants step away. You can have your cake and your neighbors cake too, just don’t expect him to ever bake another.
16
Investment in high speed rail and improved transit should also be considered to help accomplish the objective and could help distressed cities as well. If Binghamton was only 45 minutes from Grand Central, a huge swath of moderately priced real estate would become available without making crowded urban areas even more dense.
10
I wish the Times would state explicitly and forthrightly, not in a polemical way, but as a matter of intellectual honesty, that it advocates the eradication of single-family homes in the more populous areas of the country. Spell it out in no uncertain terms: no more private gardens, private trees or yards, private patios, or the privacy itself that detached walls can afford.
5
@Blair That would no doubt cause an increase in the homicide rate nationally. Humans have a low tolerance rate for proximity to each other. "Your ACs too loud, I can hear you sneeze, your dog barks too much," But I do believe in abandoning single family homes, they're socially isolating, environmentally destructive and all around narcissistic.
Why the phrase ‘lining the pockets of landlords....’? Any number of descriptive phrases could be used but the recent wave of anti-landlord sentiment here in NY I’m sure colors the discussion at NYT. You are aware of the imagery that phrase suggests.
We have had terrible tenants who were angels at application and shiftless deadbeats within months knowing how to game the system and extract free housing for nearly a year. How would you describe that? My 90 year old father depended upon that income.
Hard to believe that some tenants are bad people and some landlords good.
5
@Outer Borough
Roger that. We rented a very nice, affordable cabin, with all the amenities, to a person who was both on disability and qualified for housing finance assistance. So pretty much all his bills were paid by public monies. Two years later, the cabin is trashed and the guy is on the run as one of the local Ten Most Wanted for fraud and theft . . . guess he wasn't too disabled to run away.
It is not a coincidence that that housing has become outrageously expensive after the housing crash. Government and bank policies supported a huge wealth transfer to the rich with the way they handled this crisis. Rather than helping individual homeowners stay in their homes, these entities supported bank bailouts, foreclosures, and then sold homes to big investment conglomerates at a huge discount. Many of those homeowners could have afforded to stay in their homes if they could have gotten the same discount as some of these real estate investment trusts.
9
@Cantaloupe Say it, go on, Obama.
1
The problem of the high cost of housing is the lack of available land in desirable areas near metro areas. The population gain in the USA from 200 million residents in 1967 to 328 million currently has gobbled up millions of acres for residential development. This is a finite resource.
It is the demand for housing that has caused the problem. Each 3,000,000 gain in population requires about 1,000,000 additional housing units. The cost of the land component was 20 % in the 1960's and is now 40 % of the total cost of a house or multi-family unit. It is logical to consider the demand side of the equation and not just the supply problem.
The increase in population has been driven by immigration. Over 2/3 of the gain has been from foreigners moving to the USA and their descendants. So restricting immigration will mean more affordable housing in the future. It would have the bonus of protecting natural land from not only housing, but shopping centers, office parks and their environmental footprint. The Democrat Congresswoman Barbara Jordan was in favor of this in the 1990's.
The USA is overcrowded. So why not reduce legal immigration and have reasonably affordable housing in the future ?
2
We need more housing for families, but I hope the needs of the poor elderly are addressed as well. So many over 65 live on just social security or that plus a small pension. Finding senior housing that meets their needs is so difficult. Many aren't ready for nursing care and may never be, but they do need reasonably priced rentals. As more and more baby boomers retire affordable senior housing will become a priority.
8
What a great idea! Build more housing to attempt to solve the shortage of housing! And please remember recent NYT investigations regarding the artificially inflated costs of building in NYC. Reforms are clearly needed to speed the process of building homes and to eliminate the work rules that raise the costs far above other regions to the detriment of those who need affordable housing!
2
The Times is right to focus on supply as well as subsidies. Here is another thought. Housing is more affordable in exurban areas and aging populations there are moving on. Schools and hospitals are already built, paid for and underutilized in some of these areas. With high speed internet it is possible to relocate knowledge work jobs from housing-short urban and suburban areas. Seems to me that this solution is realistic, inexpensive, and rapid.
Perhaps the Federal Government should look to support the Habitat for Humanity playbook. It has expanded home ownership for those who might never have that opportunity. It depends on a combination of low mortgage rates, volunteer labor in the building of these homes and also sweat equity by the future owners.
I believe this model could also work for condominium building as well.
Tying Federal funds, new land use proposals, especially in more affluent communities and sweat equity as well as volunteers could help in alleviating the lack of decent and really affordable housing for those who do not have adequate housing is one of the most worthy endeavors that local, State and the Federal governments could undertake. Also Community banks could establish lending programs for this special program.
In addition it helps to stabilize families and add to the local tax coffers.
This could be a win-win for would be home owners, banks and both the Democrats and Republicans.
5
Jean,
G R E A T suggestion!!! This 4 decade old model has worked successfully here and abroad. The whole concept of small development spread out, sweat equity, and the economics from land acquisition, fees, generosity by builders and citizens in the community has worked well. THIS is the housing "wheel" that doesn't need to be reinvented. As you know Jean, the bottom line here for housing ideas such as this being "overlooked" is greed and NIMBYism on the part of realtors, entitled zip codes, and generally capitalism. However, housing is one of several topics where it is best to concede than fight morally and practically.
2
A tax credit is not the way to go. Democrats have a tax credit to fix every ill. There is already a tax credit: The earned income tax credit. This is where Repulicans have traditionally had it right. Put the money in people's pockets and let them make the best use of the dollars. The vouchers are also good for exactly the same reason. But adding tax credits for rent or whatever the next thing is just further gums up the tax code.
And the article has the priorities right. without the addition of more housing units all of the rest is just a waste of time.
Many of these cities already struggle under the weight of the existing number of people living in and near them. Lack of Parking, horrendous traffic, overcrowded schools, long waitlists for new patients needing a doctor, municipal services and resources stretched thin, etc. You can build denser neighborhoods, but what do you do with all the additional people? One of my adult children lives in Portland where this density push into single family neighborhoods is gaining momentum, but the roads are already at a standstill several hours a day and many schools are already exceeding their very high enrollment caps leading to kindergarten classes with 30 or more children and students attending classes in broom closets, in old portable trailers set around the school grounds, off site in church basements near school and in the cafeteria. You have second graders who have to leave a portable trailer parked at the margin and walk to the main building just to use the restroom.
7
@Anon
In my local city of Raleigh, there's a lot of downtown apartment building going on. All of the new buildings use the first few floors as parking with the apartments above them. The parking area is hidden from the outside, it just looks like the rest of the building.
The ground floor typically would be retail space. This takes care of parking and local shopping in a single space.
2
@Anon. Increased density requires greater investment in public transportation and other transportation alternatives such bicycles and scooters. There is no way to promote density without the above. Personal car ownership is a financial ball and chain to many people who struggle to find affordable housing or pay rent that rises with every lease renewal. Wait times in most cities need to be reduced to no more than 8 - 10 minutes for them buses and shelter needs to be provided for protection from rain or scorching sun. Streets can be redesigned to accommodate protected bike lanes, and where possible communities should construct multi-use path for pedestrians and bicycle users.
Public transportation often gets a bad rap as being dirty, a haven for crime, and a last resort for those society has marginalized. This is nonsense mostly propagated by people who never use it. I started riding the bus to save money after gas prices spike in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and was hooked. All kinds of people in my neighborhood rode it and for me it was a great place to catch up on pleasure reading while someone else drove. After we moved to another city with poor public transportation, I started bike to work during the recession and was again won over. Exercise was built into my day, which I found to be a tremendous stress reducer. My husband and I are now a one car family; it's really not hard to do and has made a very positive difference in our lives financially.
3
The problem is not the high cost of housing, but rather the idea that economic activity can happen only in a few select places such as NYC or Silicon Valley, and that it then follows that anybody who wants to live there is entitled to affordable housing.
Let housing rates be set by the market. Let employers face the need to pay salaries that can support "unaffordable" housing, and then realize that it may make more sense to operate in any of the many other affordable, livable parts of the country.
2
@Jim S.
Perhaps people in those less populated areas should ask themselves why employers and educated people won’t relocate to their communities.
2
Simple solutions from years as a landlord:
Create Section 8 vouchers for families not just single mothers.
Make it tied to earned income credits available to working families.
Give extra tax rebates to landlords and developers who rent to low income tenants with stabilized rents for long term leases of at least ten years. Pay for this with reduced property taxes similar to homestead exemptions and limited mortgage write offs on property over $500,000.
1
A simple response from years as a landlord years ago.
Stop creating and sustaining bureaucracies to "manage" all of this unnecessary complexity. All it takes is one lousy bureaucrat to ruin your life and your investment and all fuel to the fire of the inevitable war between owners and renters.
Housing affordability? Incentive people to move OUT of the overpriced cities.
Seriously. Move away and create jobs that are out there somewhere. Life will be easier!
7
Housing in the United States has never been and will never be "affordable". Let's start with that reality.
Totally agree Mike. Notice that when politicians, talking heads and opinion types use that word they NEVER define it. Never get close to defining it. Because you are right. There is no useable definition of "affordable".
Don't hold your breath.
"... the states most resistant to allowing housing construction are the strongholds of the Democratic Party, in the Northeast and along the Pacific Coast, and the most resistant voters are the wealthy residents of those states who provide so much of the funding for Democratic presidential campaigns."
Wow, it's almost as if the real stumbling block is...Hypocrisy. When did this start?
2
Uh, move then. High housing costs mean don't go there. Here where there are tons of jobs and the schools are fantastic, our home values have been plummeting for over 10 years now. Better jobs than in the oil fields of North Dakota and FAR warmer in winter..with WAY better schools and services. In my town in particular, there are amazing bargains.
So I kind of don't believe you with this Op-Ed. I think you are only talking about the coastal elites in NYC and SF/LALA-land.
1
@Mogwai most people who can't pay their rent can't afford to move. This is how people become homeless. And this problem is not limited to "coastal elite" cities, it's widespread. More affordable housing is needed in any city experiencing job and economic growth, as the cost of living rises and low-end wages stay the same. Read up on development and cost of living changes in Atlanta, Nashville, Houston, Wichita, Columbus, Sacramento and so on. I'm glad your town is doing so great, maybe other towns and cities can learn something that you guys are doing right but no one else is doing.
4
@Mogwai
as a former Connecticut girl, I'm curious where you live.
1
Housing as a solution to low income and an unskilled workforce? What are you thinking? The problem is not that housing is unaffordable(and of course it is unaffordable to many), its that families are multi-generationally trapped in the same low skill set and educational barriers. If the government would put its resources into training and educating more people in a meaningful and useful way the huge gaps between wages and affordability would be much less extreme. Building more housing does not address the real problem....it simply stretches the length of time it will take to solve it.
2
It’s not just low income families who can not afford housing. And actually today most American families are low income. Wages are stagnant and housing costs have skyrocketed
2
It is true the country did not produce enough housing during the Great Recession yet nationally we are catching up. It is also true that in places like New York, San Francisco and Seattle, regulations have slowed housing development. But it is inaccurate to say zoning requirements are slowing development across the country. Minneapolis for decades had no problem producing enough housing to meet demand. Solutions good for New York are not always appropriate for other cities.
You also conflate market rate housing with affordable housing. Market rate housing does not create affordable housing. Reducing requirements on developers does not create affordable housing. New housing costs too much to construct and developers charge whatever the market will bear.
Housing for low income people has become a merit good, not produced at an acceptable cost by the marketplace. At the same time you call for reducing requirements on developers, the federal government is selling or privatizing public housing and reducing Section 8 vouchers. Our Section 8 list is about 45,000 people long. Instead of advocating for market-based solutions that don't work for most of the country, advocate for a massive federal program to make up the difference between what low income folks can afford and what the market charges. Or how about a national movement to raise the minimum wage, disability payments and welfare payments so people can afford what the market is charging for housing?
2
@Carol Becker. market rate housing is housing not attached to a subsidy. Market rate housing can be produced that is more affordable to people living at a range of incomes. Zoning and land-use policies can and do increase the costs of housing; parking minimums can significantly increase the cost of units, as well as eat up land that could otherwise be devoted to more housing. Raising the minimum wage and disability payments are not unworthy goals but do nothing to address rising rents.
1
This argument is specious. At best.
Developers don't build affordable housing. They build "market rate plus" housing. The "plus" is to push the prices higher; to increase their profits and to be sure that the people developing a parcel on the next block don't do better than they do. Developers also tend to knock down lovely old structures and replace them with something undeniably tasteless, inside and out.
Two alternatives occur to me. Either convince companies to move out of the cities and into the vast areas of our country that need more employers and more people.
Or the Government should build or subsidize thousands of very cheap dwellings for families who are happy to pay less. Most municipalities are stuck with many plots of land that they don't know what to do with; foreclosed for non-payment of taxes or just abandoned. They should be used for the public good!
If we took the bottom off the housing market, so that renters always had a cheaper alternative, we would immediately cool off the overheated middle of the market.
The idea of ignoring the wishes of local residents so that developers can do their thing is hardly what I would call "democracy at work". And here in Brooklyn it definitely has NOT led to moderating prices. The fact that all of our "leaders", from Trump to Warren are pushing this idea anyway makes me wonder what they're really intending.
4
There is a failure to read the subtext here. Many states rely heavily on property taxation to finance schools. Landlords end up being contingently liable tax collectors for this revenue stream.
The result: a high tax is levied on the most basic of expenses: a place to live. This is astoundingly regressive and everyone ignores it.
8
One thing I have never understood is why is mortgage interest is deductible and rent is not? If you could write off your rent like you do your mortgage interest, it would go a long way to making life more affordable for people who work for a living.
Also back in the 1950s and 60s developers, like say Fred Trump, got rich building housing for the middle class due to government subsidies. Who says we can’t do that again?
Finally, back in the late 70s and early 80s when I got out of college and got a “real” job, I was able to afford a small (very small) apartment of my own despite the fact that I wasn’t making much more than minimum wage.
Of course I had no student loan debt, having gone to Brooklyn College, back when it was free or very heavily subsidized and minimum wage was robust enough to make it possible for a single person to live frugally on it.
That was the situation back then. It could be the situation today but for that to happen we have to get over the ridiculous notion that rich people and corporations should not be faced with the inconvenience of paying taxes.
8
@Brooklyncowgirl
the mortgage expense is deducted by the landlord. If it couldn't be deducted, then rents would be even higher.
1
@Brooklyncowgirl
Please keep in mind that mortgage interest is only partly deductible. For example, if you are in the 15% tax bracket, then it is only 15% of the mortgage interest that you pay that is deductible. IE my yearly mortgage interest that I pay is $10,000, I can only get 15% of 10,000, which equals $1500 tax deduction.
1
Creating affordable housing is the easy problem, just a question of financial matters: profits, taxes, assistance. The harder problem is how to keep the population from exploding as it has shown the propensity to do. And of course the more liveable a place is, the more likely is the population there to increase - dramatically. One only has to look at the cities around the world to see the problem: crowding, sewage disposal (or lack thereof), water supply, parking, ... When I used to work for a corporation, we often (daily) had meetings to address problems. I noticed that such meetings would first address easily solvable problems, putting off the hard ones until later, and often, later never came. So it is with the over-population problem: let's discuss more housing, not containing the population explosion.
7
Democrats scare me on housing issues. The solution is to LET BUILDERS BUILD.
My city is is a prime example of what is wrong. "We need more affordable housing!". Great, so we raise taxes to get that money. This is awesome. Then a developer comes forward with an affordable housing site and is denied the rezone for some random reason that is usually either the area is too dense/not appropriate (ie, too many wealthy homeowners in the area), or "unsuitable" (commercial area and/or other affordable housing within the area). The bottom line, is that for our leadership, there are no spots for affordable housing.
Even a small increase in market rate housing is frowned upon. 8 luxury townhomes on a major corridor was smacked down. They would have been in that $500 to $800 range, but the residents of the million dollar homes in the cul de sac behind the site were "afraid of the impact on traffic".
The best approach is for national democrats to lay a smack down on local governments and their zoning policies. We can throw money at the problem all day long, tax this person, tax that person, give a credit to that person, but if we don't create more places to build in growing cities, it's a lost cause.
1
Maybe thinking -- and acting on a national campaign -- about having fewer children might go along ways to alleviating the housing shortage. How, many of the world's problems are directly related to over population: the environment, pollution, ridiculous crowding in urban areas whose infrastructure was designed for the 1950s.
When I was born the US's population was 220 million, now 100 million more people live in this country.
Do we have a concept of enough?
Are we going to let the idea that: "I can do what I want, birth as many kids as I want (whether you use religion or whatever to justify it), open immigration to an unrealistic number of people, etc." until our country looks like Beijing.
How about a national campaign to address over population -- maybe no subsidies for anyone who replaces more than themselves on this earth until our population remains stable at its already overburdened rate?
Let's see a candidate with the guts to put that out there....
27
@Jon - Spot on. So many things here (and anywhere in the world) could be helped by simply having less people, yet decreasing the population is not part of the conversation.
11
@Jon
Some areas are overpopulated while vast areas of this country are practically empty. It’s a distribution problem. And since the GOP is gutting planned parenthood and working to limit access to contraception and abortion I would say that their position on the subject is pretty clear.
14
@Jon
US Population growth is at it's lowest level in 75 years, without immigration our population would be shrinking today. If current trends continue we'll be at 0% population growth within a decade.
There's plenty of space to absorb current population growth, the affordability problem is mostly in the big cities.
8
"the states most resistant to allowing housing construction are the strongholds of the Democratic Party, in the Northeast and along the Pacific Coast, and the most resistant voters are the wealthy residents of those states who provide so much of the funding for Democratic presidential campaigns."
Anybody believe this will change? California just killed a bill that would have allowed small scale multi-family housing to be built near public transportation bypassing local zoning. Yes, the one party (Democratic) progressive State of California. Republicans would do no better.
3
@F451 That's right. Among other problems with the bill was it's "one size fits all" aspect. So a town of 7,500 people, with two roads in and one road out, built in a narrow valley by steep hills was being treated the same as someplace like Sacramento - which is big, flat and can expand out forever. Brilliant.
1
The radical rise in the cost of homes is caused by investment--that is, the purchase of homes by non-owner occupants.
It has been going on for a long time.
In cities that are growing like Denver, investors own 40% of the housing stock and even where density has been radically increased, most of the homes, er, apartments, that are being constructed are for rent.
The editorial staff is dead wrong on the issue and obviously pointing toward the desires of the investors themselves.
To anyone that has a semester of college economics the market mechanics are simple. The homeowner has every incentive to purchase a home. Therefore, 100% of working adults want to own a home. However, investors own 40% of the housing stock and that housing stock is rarely on the market (usually it is only sold to purchase more housing)
Investment in this sense causes intense scarcity in the marketplace which causes competition for the available housing stock.
This competition is at the root of the housing crisis.
Indeed, if we actually were to build enough homes to make homes affordable we would collapse the market as a drop in prices would destroy the lending industry. See 2006 if you doubt my contention.
Cries by this staff and developers to alter the zoning has had no effect on the price of homes in Denver, for example. It has merely eliminated all housing stock for middle-class families and caused further separation and disparity.
16
The column states, "the most resistant voters are the wealthy residents of those states who provide so much of the funding for Democratic presidential campaigns." That is such a false narrative let alone not supported by any facts or data.
The people who once again will be hurt by such plans are the middle class. Typically, a person's home in the suburbs is their largest investment. Also, typical in the suburbs outside NYC 2/3 of a homeowner's property taxes are to fund their school system. Renters pay no property taxes but use expensive resources for essentially free.
There are many other reasons why such programs is just yet one other slap in the face to the middle class. Its not the wealthy that will be hurt by such programs, rather the burden will once again fall on the middle class. And the social ills that plague urban cities will now just be extended to suburbs damaging the middle class not the wealthy who will be able to continue to live behind guarded gates.
3
@David Weiser
1) Renters DO pay property taxes...albeit indirectly.
2) The very "middle class" northeast New Jersey "suburban" town I grew up in was primarily built-out in the 50s and 60s. My parents eventually ended up doing very well on their 1950s 1800 square foot Cape Cod "investment". That said, there actually WAS a fair amount of rental housing my town. From rental units within pre-war 2 and 3 family houses (rarely built today) to garden apartments, to (again pre-war) apartments built over small scale commercial strip construction. Wealthier suburban communities that were built out, primarily in the 60s and 70s from farm land that was farther from New York City generally had little of the rental mix that my town did.
3
Pure non-sense - this is merely a push to urbanize the suburbs, destroy the most important asset of middle class people e.g. their home, add to an already extraordinary tax burden on middle class taxpayers, and fundamentally alter suburban life and replace it with the ills of urban life.
4
Rent subsidies are, largely, giveaways to landlords. The best way to increase the housing supply is build public housing. A history lesson -- after WWII many new families were formed and there was a shortage of housing. Government built public housing. Presto! Housing was available and affordable.
10
@Rosanyc Correct. In 1955, this approach was combine with the signing of the Mitchell-Lama Housing Act. Landlords found a way to make a profit and the working class could live in the boroughs affordably.
2
I live in Atlanta, and what I witness here is perfectly fine and livable 1960-70s houses razed and McMansions rising in their dust. Often two or three of these energy-guzzling behemoths are built on a single lot. I cannot see how this serves anyone, except the bankers, lawyers and developers.
15
Affordable housing is a complex problem and presenting just one tax deal or one proposal will not get us where we need to go. The solution will be multi-pronged.
1. Sure, help with some rent subsidies.
2. Yes, build affordable housing - and if needed, put the buildings in single family neighborhoods. Fight NIMBY. This is the new integration.
3. Infrastructure! High speed rail can connect areas that are affordable to expensive job centers.
4. Infrastructure 2.0 ! Get serious about providing quality (affordable) broadband to every nook and cranny of this nation - enabling remote work. Much of what is employment today can be accomplished from home or at inexpensive office space in affordable areas.
5. Housing becomes more affordable when people have better paying jobs. Duh. Where are the "New Deal" scale jobs programs? There is so much to do to develop green energy, restore forests, helping people move away from dangerous locations (flooding, fires). Jobs, jobs, jobs!
I am disappointed in all the candidates - I am hearing minimal imagination.
12
@Bob Bruce Anderson
Good ideas all...however I hate to say it but probably the best was to resolve the affordable housing crisis would be to give the poor free or highly subsidized automobile ownership. High speed rail is years away, expensive...and useless to a (for example) "metropolitan area" working class plumbing journeyman who must travel long and varied distances to an array of work sites. People generally need access to a wide array of possible housing locations in combination with access to a wide array of possible employment opportunities to make ends meet. Outside of a metropolitan area like New York City you really DO need personal transportation for this.
1
Nearly every building I've seen go up during this current boom has been "luxury" or "high-end" apartments; The cost of new construction is high, so developers have very little incentive to build anything else. I'm not sure either of the solutions proposed in the article (more housing/more subsidies) will address this market failure.
4
The go to solution for most politicians is to give money away to fix a problem And not put an ounce of effort into looking at solutions that will not make a problem worse. Plus it’s always easy to give someone else’s money away.
5
A priority of the federal government has always been to protect the banks by enacting laws and formulating policies that keep housing prices high. Banks know that a housing market stocked with houses that have lost value is a recipe for hardship; while appreciating prices operate as a windfall and as insurance that the windfall will extend out over years and years.
I am reminded of the video footage during 2008-2009 of tractors leveling entire complexes of newly built homes that were never occupied. Why were all those homes demolished? To reduce the supply of houses and preserve that value of the houses already built.
6
Don't underestimate the effects of environmental restrictions and the activism of environmentalists to block development.
For example, environmentalists have blocked additional pipelines to deliver natural gas to the New York City metropolitan region which, effectively, is becoming a moratorium on new residential development in Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties.
1
Uh-oh--lots of landlord bashing here. We own two houses, both paid off. We live in one and rent out the other. We're not rich; we're not even upper middle class.
We bought the second house because of our jobs and lived separately during the week for a few years. Back then we could qualify to buy another house.
I've lost five jobs since becoming a senior, and each new job has had a lower salary than the previous one. Without the rental income, we wouldn't have had enough money to make even one of the mortgage payments.
I fear our plan B for a decent income (keeping the second house and becoming landlords) will be taken away too, through laws meant to rein in the big boys and girls in real estate.
Low incomes and lack of job security need to be addressed. We personally didn't have those problems early on; now most people, including us, face them every day.
The US used to have a huge middle class. Start taxing the income, capital, and estates of the truly rich again, and the middle class will grow. The invisible hand can work for the majority.
37
Increasing density in neighborhoods is laudable however cities must also take into account neighborhood school capacity and the ability for roads to handle the proposed density and increase in traffic.
Trained city planners must be allowed to do their jobs without political or neighborhood pressures.
7
I am glad The Editorial Board pointed out the thoughtlessness of Senator Harris's proposal. A helicopter drop of money into a market invariably increases demand within that market. Without a corresponding increase in supply, the only way for the market to equilibriate is for prices to increase. I have to imagine that Sen. Harris understands this given that her father was a Stanford economics professor.
Policies that attempt to address the problem of affordable housing must address the issues with the supply. Either the government has to build the apartments and homes themselves or the government needs to alter regulations to encourage builders to undertake such projects. Unfortunately, in high cost metropolitan areas like San Francisco and New York, wealthy communities almost always oppose the sorts of regulatory and zoning changes that would help address this problem. It's perhaps the single greatest example of 'nimbyism' I've yet seen, and it's ubiquitous across demographics. Otherwise 'woke' people who constantly pay lip-service to progressive ideals but don't enact them in their daily lives when they have the power to do so are hypocrites. It really is that simple.
12
The solution is to build more low-cost housing, not to subsidize overpriced rents (over $3K/month in Harris' plan). That simply causes rents to rise, so the money just ends up in the hands of slumlords. Do we really have to make the same mistakes we made in healthcare and higher education?
16
NYT Editorial Board recognizes basic market economy principles work. Increased supply lowers prices.
3
@Michael Ahern I only wish they did recognized basic market economy principles. If they did, they would also recognize that subsidies raise prices.
5
Since the Democratic Party took control of the House in 2018, we might want to look at whether any Democratic Party candidate has shown leadership by getting his or her own party to pass their housing program in the House, let alone, show they can work with a Republican-majority Senate to pass their proposal.
Even if vetoed by Trump, we could then see their ability to work with Congress, and what would emerge after all the log-rolling, lobbying and backroom deals.
The scarcity of such legislation should raise red flags, especially since the article suggests the interest of big Democratic Party Money might reflect other interests.
Notice that some candidates advocate impeaching a "fascistic" regime, but have completely failed to show leadership in getting a Democrat-controlled House to consider it.
Unless the Fed sabotages Trump's booming economy, with his approval increasing five points according to a recent WaPo survey, Democrats are facing an urgent dire catastrophe if they choose a nothing-burger.
3
@DanielMJ, I think part of the problem is that the brain surgeon occupying HUD is more interested in scoping out dining room furniture than trying to solve housing challenges. We all know how long it takes to develop legislation, have hearings, revise the language in the bill, etc. Carson doesn’t need new legislation to start making a difference now. He has a budget and staff after all.
10
Sydney, Australia builds medium and high rise apartment communities with shopping and recreation and schools around transportation hubs. These are all walkable communities where cars are not necessary. Find Crows Nest, North Sydney, St Leonards, and Chatswood on the map and follow the tracks across the harbour. The New South Wales state government is doing its's job to provide mixed housing and excellent transportation for the entire community.
7
This is a local and state issue. Not a federal one. This is about zoning laws. Bay Area California is hypocritical. Build more housing and public transit. You can afford it.
Any federal programs will be a continuation of redistributing dollars from highly productive states to the regressive ones.
What do state and local governments do all day? Clear property and build houses and apartments.
This is a strange place sometimes.
8
@Practical Thoughts Did you even read the editorial? The whole point is that the state and local governments are not doing enough. Thus, it is time for the Federal government to step in.
As far as the Bay Area being hypocritical is concerned, that is false. We are the world's leader in building high-density housing and mas transportation. All over the area, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system (equivalent of your MTA) is building housing on its lots, such as the Berkeley station. San Francisco, under our highly-effective mayor London Breed, is building large homeless navigation centers all throughout the city, starting with the Embarcadero. People all over the Bay Area are celebrating these achievements.
2
@SJW: you can't be saying that with a straight face.
There is literally NO AFFORDABLE HOUSING anywhere in the Bay area, unless you move out 2 hours from SF.
The median home price is $2 million! the median rent is $4000 (for a small one bedroom apartment)!
Building more luxury housing will not ameliorate this situation one iota.
3
@Concerned Citizen I've seen roommate wanted ads in Spanish at laundromats in Concord for $300 a month. But on craigslist, the listings in English for roommates in Concord are $700-$1,000 in month. Why the difference?
Limit the number of "investor" homes that wealthy people can buy, flip, and profit from which drives the market up. They are the ones that are ruining the housing market for everyone. Them and Airbnb.
43
@Endeavor4: ban house flipping, by adding a tax if you resell a property you have never lived in without a minimum of two years ownership.
House flipping is gobbling up and rehabbing huge numbers of less-expensive homes and turning them into what my realtor calls "Pottery Barn" houses -- all similar, with the same white walls and granite counters -- to resell at $100K over purchase price.
It is also fueling the NEXT housing crash -- just as it did the 2008 one.
6
@Endeavor4 You have no data to support your claims. Would you rather that foreclosed homes just sit empty?
Capping prices must be first and foremost in any discussion of housing affordability. Even a 2 or 3 year price moratorium may allow the market to clear and bring housing stability. Expanded housing construction without assurances of long-term affordability is no solution. Any increase in the supply of housing that does not impose guidance on rent ceilings makes stability unachievable.
1
None of the proposals address ways of lowering the high cost of land. The proven way to do that is to tax the land with a Land Value Tax, then untax buildings to encourage building even further. The LVT would spur development and allow deadweight taxes on wages, sales and capital to be reduced or eliminated, making America more competitive and increasing economic demand.
This Henry George idea now has hundreds of empirical proofs all over the world, since Goerge wrote "Progress and Poverty" in 1879.
It has a secondary effect of stabilizing Land markets, which are the largest single cause of economic booms and busts through leveraged financing.
Major economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Michael Hudson support it, but alas, it seems no presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, and certainly not Real Estate magnate turned president Trump, supports going to where the money is, in the Land.
4
"Building" more affordable housing is just one part of this solution. Here in Colorado, we need community support and also need parking to go with the condos, and better home loan policies to help people qualify. We need to be very cautious about weighting too heavily on "scores", and also need to cap interest rates for certain age groups. Let's not build housing so small that a young married couple could not reasonably accommodate a new baby...these affordable places need to be livable. I am very disappointed with Ben Carson's lack of aggressive policies and, frankly, I was also disappointed in Julian Castro's performance. We have been without home building and people-friendly loan policy reform for many years.
4
I agree with the editorial but would add a note of caution: NIMBY zoning restrictions limit the supply of housing and exacerbate home prices and rents, but someplace like NYC can hardly be accused of low density. Some regions are just plain overpopulated and the high cost of housing is the market’s way of asking “Do you really, really, really need to live here?”
7
@hb freddie People do need to live closer to work. I'm retired, but people in my small city often have to deal with a one or two hour commute to get to their jobs in metro Atlanta because Atlanta, largely due to gentrification has become unaffordable to many working class individuals.
That's an awful way to live.
2
@hb freddie People who have lived there all of their lives, or who have family there, deserve to live there, regardless of cost.
4
I am sad that Warren supports building more housing. I was a big supporter. People need to realize that making more babies is costly not only for housing but to everything else. The toll on the environment pollution and green spaces, the traffic, the loss of small towns and the encouragement of more immigration.
26
Do you prefer more homeless?
4
@Frances I see, now that you're in a home, why should others be afforded that opportunity? It's not about babies. It's about stagnant wages while the 1% and bankers/financiers rape our country of its wealth for their greed and power. All that money given to the banks in 2009 didn't go to homeowners, it went to purchasing other banks to make too big to fail even bigger. Until we get income inequality resolved and the national debt paid down by the 1% the average American is totally screwed.
2
Rent control is what we need . Rent subsidies merely displace one renter for another and induce potential landlords to buy houses and then rent them out .
Indeed it is my suspicion that rent subsidies reduce the likelihood of building new units because why invest in building when you can just jack up the rents and the government will pay if the public can’t afford to
3
@Dani Weber
Rent controls are rent subsidies granted to the old and financed by the young.
6
@Todd This is not true. All benefit when there is rent control, no matter what the age. In fact, mostly young people take advantage of rent control, as older people move on to buy houses. The need to build equity is real.
4
@SJW: that is obviously NOT the case with places like NYC that have had rent control since the 1930s -- in fact, people not only STAY FOREVER in their units (since their old rents don't go up)....they pass them on to relatives, meaning the apartments NEVER come back on the market, not for generations.
1
Maybe it's time for a referendum on the American Dream of everyone owning a house. Maybe we could stop judging adults who live with their parents--as is common in other cultures--to be failures. My parents have a 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom home, for 3 people. Several other family members could live there, and splitting the daily costs of living, child rearing, or caring for elderly could be managed this way--and everyone would save money! But I'm not a loser who lives with his parents; I live down the road and pay hundreds of extra dollars a month for "freedom." Freedom from extra money that could pay off my student loans, or improve my quality of life. Also, I occupy an apartment that could go to someone else desperate for housing. As RWE would say,"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
26
@Randeep Chauhan Please lead the way by example.
4
The lack of affordable housing needs serious out-of-the-box solutions.
An idea, cities/counties mandate that the prices of permitted housing must be affordable for those who work in the city/county.
Not until there is adequate housing for low wage employees, can more upscale housing be built.
This would create some furor. The community discussions would be interesting.
There could be pressure to find locations for affordable housing.
Incentives for locating affordable housing throughout a community is a good idea.
Cities/counties should not be forced to grow if they don't want to!!! But, again, providing affordable housing for those who work in the community is going to have to be a law.
A very complicated issue.
I live in an area where the Chamber of Commerce types are always so excited about growth, but the people want to protect ag with a green belt around the city and, of course, no one wants affordable housing in their neighborhood.
Lots of contradicting values.
8
"The Harris plan is particularly ill conceived because she has not proposed any companion effort to increase the supply of housing. There is a surface logic to giving money to people who can’t afford to pay the rent. Increasing the demand for housing without increasing the supply, however, tends to drive up prices. A 2005 increase in the value of federal housing vouchers ended up lining the pockets of landlords, according to a recent study."
I must say I am very impressed to see this kind of clear thinking in an NYT editorial.
4
As a renter in California for the last 38 years, I believe the federal rent subsidy proposals address the immediate need to make the ever-increasing, exhorbitant rents affordable to middle income earners like myself who spend more 30% of their monthly income toward rent. Building more housing which has been happening for more than a decade has not and will not solve the housing affordability because landlords and developers have priced new apartments at exhorbitant rates such as 3500 in Berkeley and Oakland and over $4000 in San Francisco. These rates could hardly be considered affordable for persons like myself who make $83,000 a year much less a family of four. Renters in the latter category get no subsidy for their rent while homeowners, section 8 tenants, and landlords/developers do. Thus, I see Ms. Harris and other democratic candidates’ federal rent subsidy as a welcome proposal long overdue. Another proposal that should become law is a federal Below Market Rate program that’s implemented piecemeal by some landlords. This program, funded by the federal government, gives middle income renters who make 80 percent or more of the average media not income a discounted rent; however, it should be run by a federal agency and renters should only have to register for the program through the agency and not individual landlords as is the practice now and this program should be regulated by the federal government not landlords. This program’s current funding should be expanded.
10
Very few are homeless because of housing costs. Most people are homeless due to profound mental illness and substance abuse. Lower rents and housing costs would be great. Building extensive mass transit networks so people can commute with ease from affordable areas where they live to their jobs would also be great. But let's stop the canard that the primary cause of homelessness is anything other than mental illness and substance abuse.
37
The causes of homelessness:
1) lack of affordable housing
(2) unemployment, (3) poverty, and
(4) low wages, in that order.
According to research conducted by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
Being homeless can make you mentally ill and can drive you to drugs.
19
@MJG Your statement is incorrect. Studies have shown only 30% of the homeless are homeless due to substance abuse and mental illness. Most are homeless due to not enough income and lack of housing stock at lower rents.
19
@MJG
Somewhere between10 to 25% of homeless are employed, but can't afford housing.
Though unless you want mentally ill and substance abusing homeless sleeping and defecating in your shrubbery, they need a place to live, or at least, "to shelter".
5
I hope the advocates of affordable housing don't overlook the cautionary tale that is Houston TX. Houston is touted as having affordable housing, but during Hurricane Harvey and other storms the same properties flood over and over again because developers were allowed to build in flood plains. Affordable housing isn't so affordable if one is constantly needing to repair flood damage and replace belongings or pay higher insurance premiums. We should build affordable housing, but let's be careful where we put it.
12
@Letitia Jeavons. The problem in Houston is that there’s a bumper crop of older housing that isn’t maintained. There are massive apartment complexes - some with 700 units - that have been deteriorating since the economic downturn of the late 1980s. Local architecture professor Susan Rogers aptly called these “the new projects.” In many cases they’re almost as bad as what the Pruitt Igoe and Cabrini Green got to.
.
And the apartments aren’t that affordable. Many of them are owned by unscrupulous landlords who purposely avoid accepting affordable housing vouchers because they don’t want to follow the rules required for housing that accepts the vouchers.
.
The lesson in Houston is that every city has a unique lay of the land, and that more needs to be done to acknowledge and work within that lay-off the land.
4
The housing affordability gap is most pronounced in the most liberal cities.
These homeowners vote Democrat while ironically embracing NIMBYism to stop new development and artificially restrict supply. Because by doing so they ensure that their own home’s value stays high.
It’s high time that this became a campaign issue.
15
I live and work in liberal Santa Fe. Houses in the range of $300-600k are selling in a day, to second homeowners from out-of-state. Half my income goes to renting. Ironically, I work for these people as a caretaker of their properties and gardens. Most of these houses stand empty for 8-10 months of the year. Some folks only come for a week out of the year. I can’t see building more housing as the answer. The housing will be priced for the wealthy and as you say, they don’t want lower income housing nearby because of property values. I can attest that they speak of this constantly - property value property value property value. So workers must live further and further out. Maybe the wealthy liberals would change their minds if the environmental issue of car pollution was rolled into the housing issue. We’re not driving electric cars, we’re driving work trucks. Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
16
Most efforts in America to create "affordable housing" have had mediocre results at best. It may be that considering housing as the problem to be solved is the error. Perhaps it's better to focus on increasing incomes. If more people can afford to buy or rent, builders will be more than happy to accommodate them. Also for decades Democrats have alienated suburbanites by trying to force higher density (apartment buildings) on communities that don't want them. I hope they won't make this dangerous political error again.
22
Reportedly, some huge percentage of people don't have even $400 in savings to handle an emergency.
So, Harris can talk about being able to buy a home with no downpayment and no closing costs, and even some subsidies, but what happens when a major appliance breaks down, or there's a hurricane or a flood causing major damage and necessitating expensive repairs, and then the homeowners' insurance premium increases? Or, in a 2 wage-earner home, one of them loses a job, or one of them gets ill and cannot work for a while but not ill enough to get disability payments? Mortgage defaults, that's what happens.
Companies build hew headquarters or warehouses where they get the largest tax breaks from the state and/or city government. Just ask Amazon.
Rents are ridiculously high because cities and towns are allowing new apartment buildings with 100-500 units in the most populated areas so that they can get the property taxes. And, the newer units are smaller and smaller in square footage. They're nothing more than a small hotel room with a small kitchen with an island....no room for a table. And, there's no limit on how much the landlord can raise the rent every year.
Want to give a tax credit? Give it to people to build that "mother-in-law" apartment on to their home, or renovate their basements into apartments, so that parents, grandparents or adult kids can live there if needed and pay rent they can afford, instead of going broke finding their own homes.
25
Years ago, people used to run boarding houses, renting rooms with shared bathrooms, with or without meals included. They rented to maybe four or five at a time, some folks transient staying for a few months until they found a more permanent home, others living there for years. They were, for the most part, clean and well run, and any boarder who didn’t follow the rules got bounced. It brought in extra money to widows with more house than income.
Our next door neighbor had what might have been called a mother-in-law apartment in his house which he rented for years to the same tenant.
Locally, a former middle school was renovated into income based housing, consisting of 59 units with apartments on 3 floors with elevator access, also close to downtown and on the bus route. They offer a community room with kitchen, on-site parking, laundry facilities on each floor, heat/hot water included, tenant storage and a courtyard with a playground.
Then there is existing housing stock being renovated by Habitat for Humanity. Lots of options abound. I do wish Section 8 housing was better monitored — more often than not the landlord pockets the money but never makes any improvements. Too many absentee owners in that program.
14
@Anne Tomlin
Over-regulation has eliminated the practicality and financial return of most boarding houses and the like from big cities (even before real estate price increases made them uneconomical). And today, any boarder who didn’t follow the rules would take many months (and expensive legal fees) to bounce.
5
@Anne Tomlin My experience in a neighborhood that had Section 8 housing was enough to turn me against it forever. Brand new housing tract, good schools, convenient transportation, should have been a good bet for young working people. However, an "investor" came in while they were under construction and bought up a large group of them. The new working couples, buying their first home had no knowledge of this until the Section 8 people began moving in. Unmowed unwatered lawns, trashy beat up old cars up on blocks in driveways, loud drunken parties with lots of trashy cars taking all of the on street parking, screaming, fighting, filthy words shouted at each other became the norm for a good part of the neighborhood. Meanwhile the investment company was collecting over $3000 a month rent on each house it owned. It was also driving down the value of the homes it didn't own so if the working people wanted to leave to get away from Section 8 problems, they lost money in selling their de valued homes. The investors made out like bandits!
5
Actually, what all the Democratic contenders conveniently forget is that the Bush administration wanted to make housing more affordable with generous loan guarantees through Fanny Mea, etc. We all know how that ended, almost in the entire collapse of the U S economy. There is no plan as to how the skimming off of all those suggested subsidies would be prevented this time. It’s also quite questionable to subsidize large scale housing development in urban areas, as this results in a further decline of the small town and rural economies. A better strategy would be to bring economic opportunities to such underprivileged areas.
27
@Tom Mix
You need to read the history of the Govt loan guarantee program and Barney Frank.
In other words, let’s continue doing nothing
@Tom Mix
The loan guarantees weren't the problem. The speculative market in derivatives was what led directly to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and nearly the entire financial market. If not for derivative bundling, banks would have had the incentive to make sure buyers were able to afford the loans they took, subsidized or not. By bundling into mortgage-backed securities, the banks got their money back up front and so had no incentive at all to worry about whether the buyer could pay the loans. Most of the problems in our housing market can be traced directly to the investment market, including the rampant speculation driving up prices in NYC, SF, and other hot markets.
2
In many parts of the country construction has been slowed by a shortage of available workers. The Trump administration's war on immigration exacerbates the trend.
7
@Ivan Goldman
You bring in available workers from other countries and you add a need for more housing for the workers. So how does that work? There are hundreds of thousands of immigrants wanting to come to the USA every year. Where are you going to put them?
13
@Ivan Goldman; you've GOT to be kidding.
Even in my Midwest RUSTBELT city....you can hardly see the skyline for all the construction cranes. Even old city neighborhoods are filling up with new construction housing, condos, townhouses, high rise apartments.
They are building as if there is a massive influx of population -- of RICH population -- yet in fact, our region is declining and LOSING population.
I can't imagine how bad it is in really growing, populous cities.
I can only figure the driving force is "irrational exuberance".
Look for a major housing crisis and price collapse, coming soon.
1
As usual, it's concentrating the wealth into the hands of a few, leaving the hands of everybody else, empty. Yet if we have ideas on how to fix, or try to balance out this mess, somehow we are "too far left"? Maybe the people calling certain idea's, "too far left" should really be asking themselves, are they too far right?
14
Housing construction costs, labor shortages, skilled construction labor shortages, capital costs, and land costs are the main contributors to high housing costs. Low wage income for a large segment of the population, which has been growing at a slow rate for decades, partially due to the Great Recession, is the main culprit in the lack of affordability for many. Single family home zoning is not responsible for the lack of income growth - or for any of the other economic factors affecting affordability and high housing costs. Single family home zoning has been around for decades. Why target SFH zoning now and blame it for homelessness? Ridiculous. Wake up! This is just a quick fix shortcut proposed and sold by developers and those they make political contributions to so developers can sidestep local regulations and make big profits! Developers, realtors, and building trade unions are all getting in on the action. The politicians they contribute to are carrying the bills. Wake up!
Did you know there are affordability crises in Idaho, Reno, Nevada, Indiana, and just about everywhere in the US? Is Idaho really so unaffordable? For whom? Those w low income. Check income growth since 2000. Meanwhile the Fed flooded our economy w cheap money. So those who already owned homes and assets benefitted and the prices of scarce assets rose, like homes and the stock market. Why not blame the stock market rise for homelessness; it would be just as accurate as your editorial.
32
@Kathy excellent comments.
1
@Kathy: housing has increased drastically in cost, since about 2014 when the "crisis ended" -- and that was only a brief reprieve after YEARS of price increases and SPECULATION.
It is speculators, investors and flippers driving the huge price increases....just as in the 2008 crisis.
1
Supply and demand, there is nothing new about this basic approach. If cities allowed more housing construction, the supply will meet the demand and rents will decrease. We should build more like Europe, high density apartments. These buildings are more efficient in energy.
8
@Socialist
Intensification is a great idea, the days of the single family home a a quarter acre have to end but its not a be all...
The other issue, as per a new report on the Toronto market, found that almost 40% of condos are owned by people who don't reside in them = investors... in Vancouver it's even higher. It's been found that only 12% of those living in Vancouver can afford to buy in the city, the rest are perpetual renters.
How to address the urban affordability issue is the question.
6
@HammerTime If the owner of a condo rents it out instead of living in it, so what? Only if for some illogical reason the owner kept it empty would this be an issues regarding housing supply.
6
@hb freddie
1. Investor ownership drives up prices so that those who work in the area can't afford to live in the area, even as renters. SoCal and the Bay area have similar issues...
2. Vancouver has an empty home sur-tax that came about when it was noticed that many units never had their lights on in the evening... units weren't allowed to even rented out.
3. How many investor units are in holiday accommodation use... air b&b? Again, out of the rental pool.
1
If we in the US lived in smaller houses, on smaller lots in more dense communities, with less stuff overall, not only would we be lowering our collective carbon footprint, but bonus, we would be freer from having to maintain all this stuff. I think we might find we are relieved not to have to spend so much time and money on house chores and maintenance.
5
@GMR
Not sure of US numbers but here in Canada the average house size in the early 70s was about 1,200 sq ft, today its about double... why when family size is smaller?
3
@GMR Plenty of houses that you personally think are too large are already built and they will not suddenly vanish. Especially because many people enjoy living in them. Providing affordable housing for people who need it does not mean everyone should, or needs to, live in a shoebox. Besides, I'm more in favor of giving people better-paying jobs, more job security, and encouraging businesses to move to cities other than the handful of super-congested, super-expensive ones that are short on housing. Giving people the chance to earn better incomes so they can afford what is already there.
8
Eleven of us shared a five bedroom,1.5 bath 1954 square foot house (and that was after an addition when I was ten and had five siblings at that point) in the years 1952-1975. My bedroom was smaller than some of today’s walk-in closets. It was chaotic but everybody learned to share, everybody found their own “space.”
3
How about changing the tax law for starters? Phase out all tax deductability on homes other than your personal/family home over period of three years. This should release a considerable number of homes for market market on an immediate basis which will depress home prices while other more complex, though necessary, solutions are introduced. Would also increase federal revenues for deficit reduction.
8
this won’t solve the problem with 2nd homes used as vacation rentals as the owners will just move them into an LLC fully converting them to business, which avoids the tax law changes you want.
4
@Richard: rich people with multiple homes don't care about the tax deductibility.
Owning multiple homes is about luxury and status.
1
A quick handful of solutions to begin with: End the landlord market. Loans only for owner-occupancy. Limit the amount of properties owned by a single person or entity. Stop the scourge of flipping. This country must cease its view of housing as an investment, and comprehend that it should be seen as shelter- and god knows plenty of citizens are desperately in need of exactly that.
56
You can’t stop banks from making business loans, however you can end the the government backing of loans on second homes.
Another issue is the deductibility of interest paid on homes. This artificially drives up the cost of homes because you can afford to pay more. Take it a step further and eliminate property tax deductions and prices will fall. Of course this will not hurt those landlords who have incorporated their homes as these non-deductible expenses would be deductible.
5
@Danielle Most renters live in apartments. The only way any new apartments get built is through construction loans. If you forbid loans to build apartments, you just wiped out the source of most new rentals. Congratulations. Rental housing is either an investment owned by investors, or a social service owned or subsidized by the government. Need does not create supply absent a market. Congratulation on proposing to destroy this market.
1
@Stan Frymann
Another source for new rentals is to make it easier for owner-occupied homes to get a variance for a second apartment. For example, my 5-bedroom house only has two people living in it now. We could easily create an accessory apartment with its own entrance, kitchen, etc., but Town rules make that nearly impossible to legally do. Rent could indeed be lower on such a subdivided home apartment and still be a boon to the owner. Environmentally that is more sustainable than building yet more housing while currently existing housing remains minimally occupied, and it could also help seniors on a fixed income stay in their homes longer. To me, at least in my area, it's less a matter of needing more new construction and more a matter of using existing housing stock more efficiently.
4
The biggest housing boom in recent years caused the Great Recession. Real estate is a complex industry and efforts to make housing more affordable are dependent on the private sector, including mortgage bankers and real estate developers. Government tinkering can help on the margins. But any effort to fundamentally alter the real estate market is beyond the means of government.
If government is to become a major player in the housing market, the costs will be off the charts. US real estate is a $33 trillion industry. HUD has a $44 billion budget. Tinkering on the margins is an overstatement.
8
Constructing more housing would increase jobs in the building trades, which would be a great employment opportunity for young people who can’t, or don’t want to, go to college.
5
Sure. Construction is going on constantly in New York City—more and more housing for the rich, some who don’t even live in their multi million dollar apartments.
1
Why is it that whenever I go to British Columbia I see there are mostly townhouses and condos? There are hardly any condos in Portland that aren’t studios and 1-bedrooms. (I have two kids and at least need a second bedroom.) I drive very little, eat very little meat, hardly ever travel, and I care about preserving the environment. I’d love to live more efficiently in a condo, but nobody builds them. How did Canada get so many 2- and 3-bedroom condos?
12
@Mel Two- and three-bedroom condos are everywhere I have lived: Portland, Maine; Pennsylvania; Vermont; and New York. They are probably in the other Portland too.
2
Even as a progressive oriented person I can say we don't need federal dollars for rent subsidy except for the truly needy. It tends to skew the market.
I back the idea of pressuring communities against NIMBYism. In the Bay Area smaller bedroom communities have fought against denser development. Some of these have the largest tech companies. Workers drive in from 30-60 miles around to work here and some are even sleeping in RVs. I know of people driving in from the Central Valley, over 80 to 100 miles away.
Why not force these communities to build denser homes around BART and Caltrans, our public transit systems? I would raise the tolls on the Golden Gate bridge to unaffordable levels to force small towns along Hwy 101 in the North to play ball with other regional players.
Without being snarky, has any reader here ever been to the neighborhoods where Feinstein and Pelosi (in SF and Napa Valley) live :) You can't afford it...
17
@Gary Valan
You can build and build and build and it will not curb the influx of people that want to come. We are already congested to the max. Encouraging more people to come to the Bay Area by building more won't help. Yes, building around Bart and Caltrans and Smart Train is a good idea but that will get filled up fast then the need is back. We need fewer people not more. We need to control population or we are all in serious trouble.
9
@Gary Valan
This single family CA homeowner is perfectly happy with the building of new, smart increased density planning and AFFORDABLE housing ON major corridors very close to transit hubs. But, developers demolish and investors buy ANY age building, then wait - sit idle on vacant properties until they get their price, for YEARS if necessary. Perhaps they should be pay a vacancy fine for lying about their investments in 'affordable' (and green, not!) housing (see Toronto, Vancouver...).
The disingenuous STATEWIDE blanket of up-zoning proposals now in the CA legislature are written (by developers) with ZERO consideration for public infrastructure - utilities, waste, schools, hospitals. traffic mitigation, and ZERO commitment to a (pathetic) proposal of 10-15% of units allocated to low income recipients. Developers can even pay a fine that goes to 'affordable housing' fund - then what? So many dormant lots, empty mini-malls, and nearly empty office buildings NOW on major boulevards worthy of acquisition and development. But, they'd rather demolish an 80 year old fully occupied 4-plex and replace it with a 5br 5ba 4K' SFR...for their 'growing family’ - so much for that ‘abundant’ housing solution. State reps should work to come up with creative long term solutions for tenants and stake holders without giving away further draconian incentives to greedy speculators.
5
Exactly! All of us in California have known this scam for the past decade and yet every month misinformed article I read doesn’t even bring it up.
Developers running wild are what destroys neighborhoods, communities and entire cities, and—in what is the ultimate slap in the face—using taxpayer money to do it.
We need a full audit of what they’re building, what affordable housing they’re destroying to build in, the vacancy rate of what they’re building, how much they’re charging to occupy it and what members of local government and city councils they donate to.
Enough! Capitalism needs regulations and a lot of them.
6
How about these ideas:
-Smaller houses!
-Eco-friendly housing, so utilities will be reduced and energy saved long term
-Mixed income eco developments using solar power and geothermal heating and cooling
-Use of more alternate building techniques like straw bale construction, earth-ship construction, modular construction techniques. Other countries are far ahead of us in using such construction methods.
-Development of tiny houses and allowing them permission to park
-More co-housing developments so dwellers can share resources and community
-Reducing the cost of geo-thermal cooling
15
@Donna Kolojeskie
excellent suggestions !
May I add, alternative human waste disposal systems rather than using precious potable water as a carrier ?
Methane digesters are one possibility . . . sometimes suggested for 'third world' countries but usually with the implication that we are 'too advanced for that'.
3
The devil is in the details, especially with housing policy. Yes, we need BOTH new housing construction AND a variety of subsidies & incentives to create more affordable housing for low and moderate income households. And yes, subsidized affordable housing needs to be focused in higher-income places. Now we get to the fine grain details where policies can, and do, go awry. NYC is generally wealthy and has been upzoning districts to create both market rate and affordable housing. Sounds good, no? No. The upzoning has been focused for years in low income minority neighborhoods. But most of the "affordable" units are too expensive for most existing residents of those neighborhoods. And, by far, most new units (75% or more) are market rate and gentrify those areas, pushing many existing residents into poorer neighborhoods still, concentrating poverty even more, and increasing racial and economic segregation. It would be more effective to use these same policies in wealthy neighborhoods. Some resistance may come from wealthy people who don't want poorer residents in their neighborhoods. But I'll bet more resistance would come from real estate interests that make bigger profits when poorer neighborhoods with low land values are upzoned & gentrified, than they do having to buy property at higher prices in already-gentrified areas. From the federal to the fine-grain local level, we need policies that put low income people first, not real estate interests. It's possible. Lets do it.
8
Instead of building public rental housing, I propose building public condominium housing. Similar but people can buy their units at a heavily subsidized price so that they can enjoy the financial benefits and leverage of home ownership.
30
@Evan these do exist, I live in a co-op apartment in East Harlem. Buyers needed to fit in a certain income group, and have to live there, no subletting, no flipping. The developer received extra money from the government as subsidy. I have lots of happy and lucky neighbors!
8
If you can’t afford a home and purchase a subsidized home and then still can’t carry the load then you sell and move taking with you the difference between the subsidized price and market value. It happened where I live and to add insult to injury a local business bought them all and now rents them to vacationers.
3
@Evan As @Kassis says, subsidized co-op buildings exist in some cities such as NYC and Boston. Vital to making them work are (1) enforcing "limited equity" rules with strict formulas on how much more than people originally paid for their units can sell for so the apartments stay affordable in perpetuity; (2) making sure subsidies are high enough, combined with a portion of affordable maintenance payments by residents, that the buildings can maintain a capital fund to pay for costly capital repairs (e.g., new roof, new boiler) needed every few years; (3) keeping residents well-organized to oversee sound building operational & financial management in perpetuity. Nonprofit developers have told me while subsidized ownership is part of the overall solution, its harder to make work than subsidized affordable rentals.
2
If people are working I am all for it, but giving subsidized housing to people just because they are poor isn’t rational. Some are poor just because they choose not to work.
13
Many are poor because they work hard but they are not paid enough. The sad fact is that wages have been flat for four decades, while housing prices have gone way up. Stop blaming the victim.
46
So people who can’t find a job or who are disabled or sick or old should live on the street?
2
and some people are poor because they cannot afford the cost of living
1
I hope none of this investment will be targeted to coastal cities. Global climate change and our lack of political will to address the problem with burning fossil fuels pretty much guarantees any housing investments in those coastal cities will be lost.
7
@JTB I don't understand your post. Why would investment in coastal cities be lost? That is where investment is needed, as housing is cheap in non-costal areas like upstate NY.
So you don't see the problem with making huge investments in vulnerable parts of the country? Global climate change on the Atlantic coast is causing more frequent and violent hurricanes and storms which ravage coastal cities every year and destroy housing and the infrastructure that supports it. But ultimately, the sea level rise from the melting of the polar ice caps is going to inundate most costal areas and destroy the infrastructure that supports the cities. Even 10 inches of salt water on the city streets every high tide would destroy most cities pretty quickly just from corrosion and mold alone. Housing is a long term investment 50-100 years, and at our current levels of greenhouse gas emissions the polar ice caps are going to melt which means their will be enough sea level rise in 50 years to start flooding coastal cities. This is why Climate Change really is an existential threat to our civilization - most of the human population lives on the coasts. Your question and the continued failure of our leaders to draw these connections makes me think we have a cultural blind spot. The connection between the loss of coastal cities and climate change seems pretty obvious but maybe it's just too awful a scenario for us to contemplate. The really tragic part is that most of us trust what our scientist tell us and that sea level rise is coming and we know how to avert it by switching to clean energy but we just can't seem to muster the will to change our energy policies.
2
@JTB Well climate change does not affect just the coasts. There are tornadoes in the Plains states and blizzards in upstate NY and golf ball sized hail in Arkansas. Every place has some type of natural disaster.
In cities with strong economies, new housing tends to raise housing prices because it improves the stock. In such cases, housing is not a fungible commodity, like oil; the new units are so much better than the old ones that they set new prices per square foot, so all you get from the addition of new (and better) housing is more expensive housing.
14
@Thomas: new housing is not necessarily better, but it ABSOLUTELY is more expensive -- because of high land costs and regulations and fees.
1
All these ideas have merit. Housing costs, along with health care costs, are enough to bankrupt many Americans, and put many more on the threshold of bankruptcy.
But how about looking at this in the other direction? Obviously housing is most expensive where the most jobs are, so in addition to addressing this problem in the most populated areas, why not create incentives to create businesses and jobs in less populated areas where housing is plentiful and affordable? Here in the west there is an abundance of sun and wind, prime ingredients for renewable energy. Building factories and facilities in these areas would solve several problems, including the creation of good jobs in areas needing them; accelerating the transition of green energy replacing carbon and extraction-based energy and the jobs that go with them, thus lowering the resistance in these areas to green energy; easing the housing crisis by giving people a reason to stay in less populated areas and not flood the crowded cities and corridors; and last, but not least, giving Red State voters a reason to vote Blue.
Things done that artificially change the price of housing inevitably distort the market and then more interventions are needed. This isn't to say that these shouldn't be done, but we should also look at alternatives to bring the jobs to places where housing is affordable. The incentives used to create jobs will be more sustainable and more effective.
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
27
An excellent idea!
Why is there not a discussion about city planning. I think all of the things written about are true, but so is poor urbanization. From poor public transportation,to centralization of cities. Do we have to live one on top of each other? Also, this building boom will only help builders, it will not help people trying to buy a home. At least from what I can tell builders and investors a reaping the benefits of the housing crisis( from 2008) and they alone will benefit from apartment building, not home owners. Limit how much they can charge and how much they can purchase and you wouldn’t have as big of an issue as we have now. Ops, is that too liberal from some, income caps, oh my?!
6
Improve and widen the reach of public transportation and the areas where people can live affordably will grow.
55
The housing market is a local matter, maybe with some state involvement. It is NOT something the Federal government should be involved in.
HUD should be abolished. Look it how they enabled NYC to become the slumlord known as NYCHA, once the crown jewel of affordable housing (back when it was getting little to no Federal subsidies other than for construction).
Let's face it, here in NYC its not just about the expense of housing. It's also about all the astronomical costs - monetary and psychic - that come with living in an over congested, over regulated city with a decaying infrastructure. It is mindboggling that Amazon even thought of moving operations here to NYC.
As others have commented, there are any number of good, cheap cities and town away from the two coasts - and the coming deprivation of climate change - that businesses should be flocking to.
20
What if we also aggressively taxed AirBNBs? A big part of the housing crisis in my community is that so many properties are held out of the rental market and are, for all intents and purposes, hotels.
Most of them are not mother-in-law apartments over the owner's garage but part of an absentee-landlord's investment portfolio.
Rent have almost doubled in this community in the last three years.
161
@KMS Indeed AirBNB income should be taxed.
Most people do not report their AirBNB income.
Since the IRS cannot find out who rents AirBNB should have the obligation to report rental fees to the IRS. Not so hard to do...
13
I believe AirBnB and others do report. At least some of them collect occupancy and possibly sales taxes. They ran roughshod over each city they moved into, but now are starting to follow the rules.
1
Absolutely true!
These income based subsidy schemes greatly incentivize earning undeclared cash.
35
@Kurfco yes but to follow your logic the tax charged on legitimate labor also incentivizes under the table work; so do we get rid of legitimate labor?,
No we increase our means of verifying income to lower fraud level.
Just for food stamp applications (based on income) one used to have to supply copies of bank statements but that stopped years ago in my state.
I know, not all income was deposited but high credit card payments could have been noticed for ex...
3
New homes built in my community in the west suburbs of Chicago typically start at about $400,000 and higher. (Probably sounds like a bargain to many readers here but in urban fly over country it's a of money and not affordable for most.) They are larger homes for people with big salaries and lots of money. Why build smaller homes with thin profit margins? Blame the builders not the cities. They will NEVER build affordable homes unless they are subsidized. How about a law requiring that builders construct 20 percent affordable housing for every 10 they build to qualify for loans. You don't comply you don't get the dough.
15
@Sammy Zoso Encouraging affordable housing seems like a good idea to me. But to take your example, if instead of a $400k single family home, the developer could build a 4-unit building, they would probably accept less money per home (say $300k per unit) knowing they would have more money overall. Not to mention that high earners currently live somewhere, so more supply means that a home somewhere is going to see its price come down, even if not here. So while I think creating incentives for more affordable housing is sensible, even just having more market-rate housing goes a long way.
4
@Josiah: you are not thinking that through.
Developers ALREADY are tearing down nice older homes to put up 3 and 4 unit townhouses or condos.
They DO charge $300K for each townhouse/condo vs. the original home at $400K.
So the developer makes $1.2 million off that $400K house.
In what way does that lead to MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING? it only leads to more costly housing -- smaller units that don't have room for children -- and giant profits for greedy developers.
3
@Josiah
More more more, we can kick this can to our grandchildren but eventually, we will have to face the fact that we have overpopulated the world.
5
Central to this issue is the demand for housing which is often based upon employment. At no time in human history has it been less necessary to live in a particular place in order to work in a certain field. Yet, like lemmings, so many of us emigrate en mass to the hallowed centers of tech and finance. It is especially ironic that this is prevalent in the tech industry as they are the ones who made the world a smaller place. Why aren’t mire people less centrally located in the cities and towns that aren’t NYC, the Bay Area, Austin, Charlotte or Boston?
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@From Where I Sit
I also find that tech companies like Google or Apple or Amazon, to stay in a place, or move in, should just demand zoning rights to build housing for all of their workers, and then some. And they can build it themselves, and sell it, or rent it to their workers, and others.
I don't know why they don't. It outrages me.
11
@From Where I Sit From my own experience with Silicon Valley tech companies, even if employees can telecommute the company wants those employees in the office. Sure, an employee can telecommute from their local home for a day or two once in awhile if their car breaks down or something, but that's all most companies want to deal with. There are tons of local potential employees happy to be in the office every day, so why hire anyone who isn't? Also, there is an advantage to employees that if the company goes under (very common with startups), or does a layoff, it's easier to find another local job. If there are only one or two tech employers in some area, people who have to change jobs often have to move out of state. They have to sell their house, their spouse also has to find a job in the new area, etc.
9
@From Where I Sit
"Why aren’t mire people less centrally located in the cities and towns that aren’t NYC, the Bay Area, Austin, Charlotte or Boston?"
Simple: tech companies go where they can find really smart people to work. And really smart people usually can afford to have a choice of where they live, and will not work in MEGA country, no matter how much you pay them. And outside of Tech jobs (and related support jobs), other good jobs are mostly leaving the states for want of basic skills, leaving those behind those being battled over by MEGAans and Illegal Immigrants.
1
I don't want a tax credit toward my rent; I want to be able to organize and demand wage increases. It makes no sense to rely upon government subsidies to make up for stagnant wages. Why should companies get more of a pass? They don't pay fair taxes or wages. They manipulate hiring to make us independent contractors at their beck and call. Change the laws that favor employers.
282
@landless Yes, this focus on housing reflects the fact that most people have given up on workers' pay. It's really pathetic that we accept such stagnant incomes and just look for workarounds all the time rather than solving the crux of the problem. What's the federal minimimum wage now? $7.25 per hour which is ~ $15,000/yr - no wonder people can't afford to pay rent.
40
@landless Rent subsidies are not stipends awarded to underpaid workers who cannot afford to pay market rents. They are subsidies paid to investors who bid up the market price of low cost homes and force families out of the housing market. And they are subsidies paid to wealthy investors who own hundreds of apartment buildings and collect the rent from thousands of apartment dwellers.
40
@landless
You've nailed it, landless, and at the same time exposed the NYT editorial board and the hapless fixes being proposed by the Democrats running for president as being hopelessly naive.
Building more housing -- either for purchase or renting -- comes with many caveats. For example, it's relatively easy for a developer to build a six unit apartment complex, but that depends on the developer finding enough land to build on. However, stacking families in apartments is cruel, inhumane, and objectionable to neighbors, especially if no suitable yard space is also set aside for the apartment dwellers.
As for organizing to demand higher wages, I wouldn't hold out for any candidate -- except Bernie -- to agitate for union membership and a larger piece of companies' earnings dedicated to the workers that made their profitability possible.
But let's face it, so many of us work for non-profits, government, or small businesses that pay increases -- if they ever happen -- are not likely to meet the demands of a family's budget.
Like busing, a "more-housing" initiative is going to doom the candidates. Hate to say it, but Trump is looking more and more like a two-term president.
9
You can’t talk about zoning or Charter reform until you include:
1) Taxes. Single family home owners in cities are laughing all the way to the bank. Really.
2) Foreign Investment. We hear all the time in NYC that there’s not enough supply. And, yet, there are 10s if not 100s of thousands of empty units held by investors. Real estate has become a speculative commodity over the last 35 years.
3) Racism. No one wants to say it out loud but white power is concentrated by controlling land values. That does not equal reducing displacement, creating more units, creating more affordable units or increasing buildable density. It runs inverse to creating more housing.
4) Historic Land Use. Urban centers like NY are only recently considered to be a destination for families. NYC was a manufacturing center and then a locus of finance and arts. The fact that it has become the latest corporate suburb has complicated and at times ruined the lives of millions of working class families who have been here for multiple generations. The infrastructure is not equipped for this build more residential mentality. NYC has historically been a place of business and work.
5) Privatization. Local governments and politicians hate poor people but say otherwise on Twitter. Ultimately housing goes back to taxes and municipal funding. Cities want to build more housing for the tax revenue but don’t want to cover costs of section 8 when the federal government continues to disinvest.
23
"It is simply not in the public interest to subsidize infrastructure in cities that are preventing housing construction."
The infrastructure is at capacity in many of the places the board mentions and will need major upgrades to accomodate more people before any new housing can be developed.
I prefer a plan that would reduce the amount of properties gobbled up by institutional investors driving up prices for everyone but not penalize local investors and flippers.
5
@mlb4ever Institutional investors are a little like the monopolies that current democratic candidates talk about breaking...
We could also require "large" investors to rent say 30% of their newly acquired properties at affordable prices (say 30% below local average.)
We could also tax multiple property owners at 5-10% more than single property owners - I don't see this proposed anywhere.
1
Considering there are many cities in the US that are much less congested than the major coastal cities, I'd prefer a program to move some businesses to those less congested cities. Move jobs to the places that need them, rather than accommodating endless migration.
89
That’s not how business works. Cities offer the skilled labor force at every wage level to accommodate entrepreneurs. This is precisely why NYC continues to thrive as it’s critics complain of over regulation and god for bid “liberals.”!!
6
@Frances Grimble
Less congested cities tend to have a dearth of qualified and skilled workers. They've all left for the major cities.
3
Of course many people don’t want to leave the blue states for the tender mercies of the anti-choice, LGBTQ-hating, god-bothering red states. You can move there if you like but I won’t.
9
yes we need more housing !! bring housing affordable for tax payers to Build and for renters to rent
In Chicago an non profit wants government money 20 million to build 45 units studio , 1 bedroom and a few 2 bedrooms
That is equal to ~$440,000 / unit .
The medium price of a single home in US is $188,000
Does a homeless person need location location location, or a home ?
11
If they’re going to be able to keep their home, they need to be within a commutable location relative to employment. You can’t commute to Manhattan from Peoria.
10
@From Where I Sit
Correct, but with high speed rail in China, Japan, France, and other places with modern infrastructure, people are very comfortably commuting from 100 miles and more.
The main problem with all these initiatives is that they fail to address WHY rentals are so expensive in the first place. While rent control protects a select few, it creates a DISincentive to build more housing. Why would a builder build if there is basically "no money in it"? So instead, builders build luxury stuff so that they can get a reasonable return from their investment, although are often required to set aside a number of apartments for lower-income people, which, of course, RAISES the cost of rent for everybody else.
There is no such thing as "affordable housing". It simply means that the costs are passed onto others, which, in turn, makes rent higher.
68
@Mark91345 Rent control works when it covers very large areas, like the whole state with rates based on individual areas.
In France a tenant's rent cannot be raised by more than the increase of cost of construction (yearly published.)
After a vacancy, rent can be brought up to average rent for that area.
For renters above age 70 rent cannot go up, unless laws have changed. A consequence is owners are reluctant to rent to older tenants who also cannot be evicted.
4
@Mark91345 And those other people can afford to pay more; low-income renters can’t. Higher-income people have an obligation to subsidize the rest.
2
@crispy 40 Looks like France has it right. There should be no such thing as investment property income. Housing is a universal right and should be not-for-profit.
7
Seattle has built tens of thousands of new apartments the last few years. Rents are only beginning to stabilize but at a very high level. Vancouver BC has built tens of thousands of new condos in the last 10 years. Units in both cities are still unaffordable for normal people. Developers, homeowners and real estate agents have gotten rich. Single family homes must go near the city and be replaced with high rise apartments. As a single family homeowner I would hate to see that happen but sadly it must.
3
Better to build cheap public transportation (to get poor people to work) and give cash supplements for living.
Current tax credits for building low-income housing not working for poor people. (The builders get their tax credits when they complete the construction. ) Landlords do little for maintenance after construction. (No reason to make the place nicer if you not allowed to charge more rent for 15 years.)
Also renting to tenants below the average local income locks in poverty (up to 15 years) in that neighborhood. Doesn't create the place most want to live.
11
@Antony One of the signatures of a bad area is that there are no businesses...because the residents don't have any income to buy goods or go out to eat...so there is no street life.
3
@Antony
"Better to build cheap public transportation (to get poor people to work) and give cash supplements for living."
Of course, in a dream world (or France, Japan, China, etc.), but our infrastructure is in a neck-to-neck race to the bottom with Italy. The 1.5 mile Second Avenue Subway in NYC cost almost 5 Billion and ten years to build. A new Hudson River tunnel has been stalled in Congress for a decade despite the fact that a failure of one of the ancient existing tunnels would virtually destroy the US economy. The money has gone to the wall.
@Casey Really? In bad areas of Oakland, CA there is lot of street activity, like homicides, beatings, and robberies.
Why perpetuate a myth that "the states most resistant to allowing housing construction are the strongholds of the Democratic Party, in the Northeast and along the Pacific Coast..."? The densest cities in this country (housing units per square mile) are New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Los Angeles. Maybe there's more to the problem of housing affordability than NIMBY resistance from rich Democrats.
31
@fbraconi This is related to the myth that high density leads to more affordable prices. All one has to do is look at the data to see that there is not even a correlation. The densest cities are the most expensive.
9
@Larry Figdill
Maybe, just maybe, they are dense because everybody wants to live there. See: Econ 101...Supply vs Demand and affect on Price.
BTW-Never heard that myth. Makes zero sense.
Want affordable housing? Go where no one wants to live.
9
@fbraconi
Wealthy liberal NIMBYs are a big part of the problem.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/upshot/home-ownership-nimby-bipartisan.html
1
Part of this is driven by income inequality because housing has become an international safe deposit box for trillions in cash sloshing around the world. Something like 17@ of new sales in Florida are sold to foreign buyers. This trend is most evident in resorts but not confined to those places.
194
And this is why it's important that any of the new construction advocated here is kept OUT of the "housing" "free" "market" (which offers none of those, just a big insider casino like the stock one) and instead thoroughly regulated so that no one owns more than two units and all units are used for actual housing of actual people—enforced with eminent domain with heart and teeth.
Time to evict Mr. and Mrs. LLC and their friend Nunn Resident. They've thrown their loud pricey house party too long, and the homeless need their space.
19
@Mick Ireland
Here in the SF bay area, the foreign money coming in to the residential real estate market is overwhelming any but the extremely wealthy. Often, homes that are purchased for $1-2M remain vacant. A real estate agent I know told me that rarely does a home come on the market with a price; they announce the home as "Coming Soon!" in the ads, then let the bidding begin. It's almost all cash, almost all coming from China.
And these homes are often modest, 1,100-1,400 square feet on 5K sq. ft. plots of land. In other parts of the country they'd sell for $100-250K. Here, they're as much as $1.5M and more. If anyone reading this doe not believe it, look them up on Zillow or Redfin RE sites (towns of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Woodside, Atherton). These are all about 35 miles south of San Francisco. Locals outside of the tech industry (and many in it) don't stand a chance.
66
@SR Agreed and that would not take a big piece of legislature either. We have too many millionaires in Congress and this idea would not even occur to them. I STRONGLY suggest you send this suggestion to Mrs Warren and Bernie and add my name to the letter
6
"Market rate" housing is promoted in New York all the time. It SOUNDS great - until you realize that it always ends up costing more that most working people can afford. A one bedroom apartment that rents for 3,800 a month is considered "market rate" even though MOST of the market cannot afford it. If only the top 5 or 10 percent of earners can afford it, it shouldn't be subsidized or promoted in any way - no tax breaks no free anything for the developer. Our cities in particular need affordable housing for the average person in order to thrive. All I see is luxury housing and programs directed at politically connected niche populations - veterans, government employees, etc.
53
@anae
Any housing in NYC costs a lot to build. Where are the incentives to build housing for affordable rents? The recent Rent Law changes in NYS take away virtually any incentives to build new housing (other than luxury housing) or improve existing housing to preserve affordable apartments. This editorial ignores the fundamental problem with increasing housing stock.
12
@Ken Jacobs I don't care about incentivizing businesses anymore. I'm a teacher. Why doesn't anyone want to incentivize me?
5
@anae
Agreed. To improve the NYC situation, first look at who is buying the apartments, and how. Cash purchases of real estate are a known avenue for money laundering (which is why Donnie and Jared have so many Russian and Saudi friends). Second, institute occupancy requirements, so either the owner must live there at least part of the year, or document that the property is in fact rented out. Should they fail to demonstrate the place is being lived in, tax them heavily. No tax breaks that make it more advantageous to let a property sit vacant than it is to lower the rent. That will bring rents down to what the actual market can afford, or start a sell-off that will bring prices down.
3
I am glad that you understand that increasing new supply is the to go which will be accomplished by relaxing zoning constraints. However this editorial is inconsistent with your past support for rent control which reduces supply.
6
As population rises and drive up land and real estate values in cities with plentiful job opportunities, the pressure on housing will only go up. Real estate will continue to be one of the things that inequality drives into the hands of the very wealthy: Instead of homes sheltering our population, they have become an investment for the wealthy and corporations, who inflate rents AND home prices. The Times has discovered excellent research in the Joint Center for Housing which makes these trends clear and agrees with evidence from HUD and the US Census. In the seventies and before, conventional wisdom said not to spend more than a quarter of your income. But since the 1980s, homes have risen as a percentage of income, more for renters, of course, until, as you point out, millions pay over half their income.
The GDP and unemployment figures make a rosy picture but they don't reveal the increasingly hard lives that Americans live.
25