The Washington Post: Despite recent efforts, many obstacles to fixing the affordable housing problem

The Washington Post, September 13, 2019: Despite recent efforts, many obstacles to fixing the affordable housing problem

We will never solve the country’s persistent affordable housing problem unless fiscal and land-use policies change dramatically, and unless views and attitudes of American voters and their elected representatives also change.

Fundamental sources of the housing problem are plainly visible.

We who are better off accept and enjoy the economic benefits of employing low-income Americans willing to take jobs and work for wages insufficient to enable them to afford market-rate housing. Millions of low-income households must spend half their total income just to cover housing costs, leaving them significantly less than necessary for life’s many other necessities.

Given today’s costs for developing and owning real estate, and housing in particular, it is increasingly difficult for minimum-wage households, and even moderate-income households, to find and afford decent housing.

Essentially it boils down to a problem of money. Because of scant concern on the part of haves for housing affordability challenges faced by have-nots, relatively little political support exists for taxation needed to effectively address and solve affordable housing problems.

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