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Where the demand for available housing exceeds supply, a large amount of the housing stock is not affordable to much of the population. Such areas commonly experience income growth for middle and working class households at rates lower than the rates at which property values rise. These same areas also tend to have a limited supply of land on which new housing can be built, or an array of statutes that make it difficult or costly to generate expanded supply. The most "affordable" places in the U.S. are where there is the least demand and an adequate supply. Comprehensive data for the most affordable and least affordable places in the U.S. is published each year by an affordable housing non-profit organization, the National Low Income Housing Coalition. CONSEQUENCES OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING SHORTAGES A common measure of community-wide affordablity is the number of homes that a household with a certain percentage of Median Income can afford. For example, a community might track the percentage of its housing that is affordable to households earning 60% of median income. In addition to the distress it causes families who cannot easily find a place to live, lack of affordable housing is considered by many Urban Planners to have negative effects on a community's overall health. For example, lack of affordable housing can make low-cost labor more scarce, and increase demands on transportation systems (as workers travel longer distances between jobs and affordable housing). POLICY TOOLS TO ADDRESS AFFORDABLE HOUSING Numerous policies in the U.S. and abroad have been designed to address the problem of inadequate supplies of affordable housing. Sophisticated secondary market mechanisms, inclusionary , and reduction of the amount of Parking that must be built for a new structure. Affordable housing is a controversial reality of contemporary life, for gains in affordability often result from expanding land available for housing or increasing the density of housing units in a given area. Ensuring a steady supply of affordable housing means ensuring that communities weigh real and perceived Livability impacts against the sheer necessity of affordability. The process of weighing the impacts of locating affordable housing is quite contentious, and is laden with race and class implications. HOUSING SUBSIDIES The federal government in the U.S. provides subsidies to make housing more affordable. Financial assistance is provided for homeowners through the mortgage interest tax deduction and for lower income households through housing subsidy programs. In the 1970s the federal government spent somewhat equal amounts on tax expenditures for homeowners and low income housing subsidies, however by 2005 tax expenditures had risen to $120 billion per year, representing nearly 80 percent of all federal housing assistance. (See Chart.) The Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform for President Bush proposed reducing the mortgage interest tax deduction in a [http://www.taxreformpanel.gov final report issued on November 1, 2005. Housing assistance for lower income households can be divided into three parts:
“Project based” subsidies are also known by their section of the U.S. Housing Act, and include Section 236, Section 221(d)(3), Section 202 for elderly households and Section 811 for people with disabilities. There are also housing subsidies through the Section 8 program that are project based. The program has produced a large share of the affordable units, however the affordability level in these units is less than the former HUD programs. An overview of the housing challenges facing America was conducted by the Millennial Housing Commission in 2000, under the leadership of Conrad Egan . ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Public agencies that contribute to the work of ensuring the existence of a steady supply of affordable housing in the United States are the U.S. and the Urban Institute and the Joint Center For Housing Studies at Harvard University , and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities . SEE ALSO |
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