How Policy Can Help AH

One of the B&B Alumni posted an article, Strategies Detailed to Remedy DC's Affordable Housing Crisis, which gives some insight into what happens when gentrification occurs and gives a few policy options which may help increase the amount of available affordable housing.

One of the major drivers of rent prices in urban areas is walkability which means neighborhoods have to be safe, walkable (duh) and have grocery stores/banks/restaurants within a couple of miles.  Unfortunately in order for urban areas to become more walkable (i.e. gentrified), contractors are demolishing cheap housing, thus pushing lower income individuals out of areas they have called home for decades.  They then have to go out and find new housing which will probably be more expensive and more inconvenient to work/grocery stores/etc.

The current public policy landscape, especially in DC, is doing very little to protect these already vulnerable populations.  Chris Leinberger offered up some possible policy solutions:

• Offering standard tax credit and vouchers from the local government in lieu of increased tax revenues from other parts of the walkable urban district
• Participating in federal government programs associated with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods, the next generation of the department’s Hope VI programs
• Instituting inclusionary zoning to require affordable units within a district with higher walkable urban infrastructure investment
• Implementing fee capture upon resale of any market-rate unit within a district with such infrastructure investments
• Allowing ancillary units in for-sale housing (i.e., “granny flats”) to expand the housing supply
• Encouraging employers to locate in transit-oriented developments in order to increase tax revenues in those districts.

None of these policies will be put into action, let alone be brought to the table, until policy makers are made aware of the AH crisis we have in this country.  Unfortunately, important issues like this will not be brought to the table unless constituents call/write/email/fb/tweet their law makers at a local, state and policy level.

So what are you waiting for - become an AH advocate and start spreading the word!!