A new housing policy for America: recapturing the American dream

Abstract

This book proposes a comprehensive, innovative, and largely self-financing plan to meet America's housing needs in the 1990s. Showing how current housing policies and housing needs are diametrically opposed, the authors analyze more than two hundred new state, national and international housing efforts to derive a plan that will meet the challenge of U.S. housing and demographic trends in the 1990s. Projecting the special needs of young families, single-parent families, and low- and moderate-income families in the 1990s David Schwartz, Richard Ferlauto, and Daniel Hoffman propose new roles for non-profit organizations and employers. Their new plan advocates a federal down payment assistance loan program, a lease purchase home-buying program, an employer-assisted homeownership plan, a mortgage interest rate buydown fund, shared-equity mortgages, a new National Housing Investment Corporation, and a Federal Housing Trust Fund to construct needed rental units. In addition, special programs are suggested to provide housing help to elderly people, single-parent families, and the homeless. Author note: David C. Schwartz is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and a member of the New Jersey General Assembly. Richard C. Ferlauto is a community organizer and legislative analyst who concentrates on housing and community economic development issues. Daniel N. Hoffman is a consultant on housing and urban economic development with The Atlantic Group in New Jersey.