Affordable Housing Opportunities Research Articles

Tennessee announces permanent supportive housing funding

The Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (TDMHSAS) last week announced applications are open for about $15 million in state funding to create affordable, permanent supportive housing for Tennesseans living with behavioral health challenges, according to a department news release. The funding is spread across three programs under the Creating Homes Initiative (CHI). Over the past 22 years, CHI has leveraged more than $992 million in state, federal, local, foundational and other funding sources to create more than 32,000 housing opportunities in Tennessee. CHI began in 2000 under the leadership of now TDMHSAS Commissioner Marie Williams as a program to house people living with mental illness. With support and new funding from Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly, CHI expanded in recent years with new programs to support people who are in recovery from addiction and re‐entering communities from prison or jail. Funding through CHI is issued to grantees to develop safe, quality and affordable housing opportunities in the communities they serve.

The deconcentration of minority students attending bad schools: The role of housing affordability within school attendance zones containing good schools

One of the major concerns with public education in the U.S. is that black and Hispanic students are concentrated in low performing schools where most of the students come from poor families. Underlying this concern is evidence showing that minorities perform better on standardized exams if they attend non-poor schools. One strategy to deconcentrate minorities within poor or low performing schools is to open up affordable housing opportunities within better school attendance zones (SAZs). In this paper I examine the efficacy of this approach using data on Florida elementary schools. I find that shifts in the proportion of a school district's affordable units in favor of better SAZs decrease the concentration of both black and Hispanic students in bad schools. However, different types of affordable units matter depending on the race of students and the definition of what constitutes a good school.

Disruptive Solidarity or Solidarity Disrupted? A Dialogical Narrative Analysis of Economically Vulnerable Older Adults' Efforts to Age in Place with Pets.

Over one-third of older adults in many countries have a companion animal, and pets may harbor health-promoting potential. Few studies have considered pet-ownership in relation to economic vulnerability, and pet-ownership has not been often considered within policy efforts to promote ageing-in-place. We conducted a mixed methods case study to understand perspectives of both community agencies that support ageing-in-place and older adults themselves. A shortage of affordable, appropriate pet-friendly housing emerged as a challenge, even when framed as a legitimate choice and preference for many older adults. In this manuscript, we share the trajectories of three economically vulnerable older adults whose affordable housing needs became entangled with commitments to pets. Guided by dialogical narrative methodology, we offer each narrative as a short vignette to (i) illustrate the extent to which older adults will practice 'more-than-human solidarity' for a pet, even when their own well-being is compromised as a result; and (ii) highlight incongruence between the underlying moral values that shape solidaristic practices of individuals versus solidaristic arrangements that shape affordable housing opportunities. We suggest that housing rules and legislation that disrupt, rather than confirm, more-than-human solidarity may render older adults susceptible to, rather than protected from, deteriorating physical, mental and social well-being. We propose that collective solidaristic practices must reflect and subsume the moral complexity of solidarity practiced by individuals, to enable fair and equitable ageing-in-place.

Regulating marginality: how the media characterises a maligned housing option

ABSTRACTCommunities often stigmatise forms of housing targeting low-income tenants. This paper examines how media sources characterise one such form: rooming houses that provide multiple, low-cost, single-room accommodations in structures with shared bathrooms and/or kitchens. By analysing newspaper and online media coverage in Halifax, Canada, we illustrate the way the media describe the rooming house as a risky structure and its occupants as dangerous and marginalised persons requiring surveillance and regulation. Media coverage can play an important role in creating the social context within which local government fashions planning and housing policy interventions to control the size, location, and operation of unpopular housing options. In cities where market pressures drive gentrification, negative media coverage can contribute to the on-going loss of such affordable housing opportunities.

School segregation and the foreclosure crisis

One overlooked consequence of America's foreclosure crisis is the impact it had on school segregation. Using data on Florida schools, we find that the crisis reduced the racial segregation of elementary schools by opening up affordable housing opportunities to black families in predominantly white neighborhoods. Our analysis has the added importance of providing a natural experiment testing whether more affordable housing in predominantly white school attendance zones will decrease segregation.

'Simply to be let in': opening the doors to lower-income older adults and their companion animals.

Inspired by poet J.L. Borges's intimations on acceptance, this commentary highlights the eviction of an older woman and her kitten from an affordable independent living facility as representing exclusionary practices and policies that compromise the ability for some lower-income older adults to age-in-place. Even as efforts to promote aging-in-place have prioritized housing as a key need, and public health evidence suggests benefits from animal companionship later in life, there is a shortage of social and other types of affordable housing in Canada and elsewhere that allows older adult tenants to reside independently with companion animals. Within the private housing market, however, companion animals may be leveraged as a marketing tactic, with 'pets' being welcomed into rental arrangements. In light of this means-patterned discrepancy, this commentary troubles the persistent undervaluing of human-animal relationships that exists at policy and practice levels. Furthermore, banning companion animals from affordable housing subsumes an accepted yet insidious practise of regulating the lives of older adults who have not achieved idealized conceptions of responsible aging, including home ownership. We draw these two concerns together by advocating for adequate provision of affordable housing opportunities where lower-income older adults may be granted the choice to establish a home that includes a companion animal as they age-in-place.

School Segregation and the Foreclosure Crisis

One overlooked consequence of America's foreclosure crisis is the impact it had on school segregation. Using data on Florida schools, we find that the crisis reduced the racial segregation of elementary schools by opening up affordable housing opportunities to black families in predominantly white neighborhoods. Our analysis has the added importance of providing a natural experiment testing whether more affordable housing in predominantly white school attendance zones will decrease segregation.

Addressing the Dichotomy of Federal Affordable Housing Policy and Program Implementation

Two of the most popular Affordable Housing initiatives administered by the Federal Government are the Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) Program administered by The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Program administered by the Treasury Department. Although the two programs have significant programmatic differences, they both serve the same end. They provide affordable housing opportunities for low-income Americans. However, there is a distinct divergence in the Federal Government’s policy regarding affordable housing and the concentration of poverty. In the last few decades, HUD has been ushering in a subtle, yet pervasive, change in affordable housing policy with the near-wholesale transition from Public Housing (typified by the ‘Housing Project’ or Developments) to Housing Choice Voucher which permits participants to select any rental unit in the private market. Unlike Public Housing which is predominantly located in areas of high-poverty, the HCV program works, not only by HUD’s design but by effect, to deconcentrate affordable housing options. Conversely the LIHTC program provides a substantial incentive in the construction of affordable housing options in areas that are designated by HUD to be either a Difficult Development Area or Qualified Census Tract. These areas often represent areas of extreme poverty, high crime, delinquency, psychological distress, various health problems, low property values, poor schools, and few employment or transportation options. The LIHTC approach seems, in effect, to provide affordable housing to areas where those who need it the most currently live, rather than rewarding development that would serve to draw those individuals from impoverished areas. While the QCT/DDAs were determined solely by HUD, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 now permits the state housing finance agency to determine which areas are considered DDAs. This has led to a disparate application of standards throughout the country.

Is subsidized housing in sustainable neighborhoods? Evidence from Chicago

This article explores the connection between subsidized housing and sustainable urban form. Given the general disconnect between new market-rate housing in sustainable, walkable neighborhoods and affordable housing opportunities, we expect affordable housing to be located in less sustainable locations in terms of proximity to amenities, walkability, street connectivity, density, and diversity of urban form. A rich set of parcel and planning data for the city of Chicago was used to correlate sustainability indicators with the locations of both project- and tenant-based affordable housing programs. Difference-in-means tests and other descriptive statistical analysis suggest that project-based locations (with the exception of Chicago Housing Authority family units) actually score above average, especially in terms of accessibility and walkability, albeit it at the cost of concentrated poverty, racial segregation, and crime. In contrast, vouchers are located in less sustainable locations when it comes to accessibility and walkability, although they are in neighborhoods with more diversity and less poverty – and, at lower voucher concentrations, with less segregation and crime – than project units.

Bureaucratic Strategies of Exclusion: Land Use Ideology and Images of Mexican Farmworkers in Housing Policy

This article examines how land use ideology and popular images of farmworkers contribute to the housing crisis for Mexican farmworkers in Fresno County, California. Despite the desperate need for affordable housing in the rural areas of Fresno County, local policy makers either have failed to aid or have actively discouraged attempts to increase the stock of affordable housing. Through an ethnographic examination of public policy decision making about residential construction on the west side of Fresno County, I document how public officials make policy decisions based on both a land use ideology that rationalizes governmental failure to serve Mexicans working in the agriculture industry and portraits of farmworkers and farmworker families that reflect stereotypes and nationally relevant population characteristics rather than regionally specific realities. This ideology and these stereotypical profiles operate to render invisible portions of the Mexican farmworker population who have been working in the area for decades and diminish affordable housing opportunities.

The Paradox of Progress: Three Decades of the Mount Laurel Doctrine

Judicial implementation of New Jersey’s “fair share” housing doctrine in the Mount Laurel cases has been controversial because of the perception that the courts were intruding on policy and planning matters better left to the political branches. A paradox resulted. Strong judicial remedies were needed to break the political stalemate on issues of affordable housing, but voluntary compliance that could have avoided these stringent remedies became politically impossible for many municipalities because of the controversy over the courts’ role. A new approach to fair-share compliance, called “growth share,” has now been proposed, which seeks to break out of the paradox by giving deference to local governments on land use development issues so long as affordable housing opportunities are created simultaneously and in fair proportion to the actual growth experienced by each municipality. Potential strengths and weaknesses of this new approach are explored.

Equalising Housing Opportunities in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Faced with a dearth of affordable housing opportunities, even after the end of Apartheid, residents from Motherwell, South Africa, turned to CHF International for help. CHF provided residents with the technical assistance, organisational support and bridging finance they needed to build their own high-quality homes, through a method that allowed the use of relatively unskilled labour. After helping residents form the Sakhezethu NgoManyano Housing Association and establishing the Assisted Self-Help Model, community members built a total of 395 safe and affordable houses to which they have full title. This model has been transferred throughout South Africa, with thousands of houses built using the concepts for the development of housing and community that it established.

Essential Function Bonds: An Emerging Tool for Affordable Housing Finance

Essential Function Bonds (or EFBs) are issued by housing authorities to finance the construction and substantial rehabilitation of affordable housing or other community facilities owned by state and local housing finance agencies. Although some state agencies issue EFBs as part of their efforts to expand affordable housing opportunities, local housing authorities have pioneered the use of this tool. As part of a broader effort to reform public housing, the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 authorized new ways to leverage capital and operating funds and stimulated interest in bond financing mechanisms. Building on information from a previous study, the Joint Center for Housing Studies surveyed local housing authorities and discovered that since the last survey in 1995 when agencies reported construction or rehabilitation of 16,063 units via EFBs, the use of EFBs has surged, resulting in the construction or rehabilitation of 41,615 units of housing between 1995 and 2002. This report briefly summarizes the nation's continuing affordable housing challenges and the efforts made by local housing agencies to expand production and rehabilitation of affordable housing. It discusses the survey methods used by the Joint Center for Housing Studies as well as the growing use and acceptance of EFBs. The report contains case studies documenting EFB use, and finally briefly discusses some of the policy challenges facing local housing agencies as they seek to meet continuing housing and community development needs.

Fair Share or Status Quo? The Twin Cities Livable Communities Act

This article presents an analysis of the potential impact of a program of regional fair share housing in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area: the Livable Communities Act (LCA). The author argues that fair share programs can be judged by two standards: (1) the degree to which they meet current and projected needs for affordable housing and (2) the extent to which they redistribute affordable housing opportunities throughout a region. The analysis shows that the LCA fails on the first of these standards and only minimally meets the second. Should program goals be fully met by all of the participating communities, the LCA will result in a decrease in the relative availability of affordable housing by 12 percent compared to a continuation of the status quo. In addition, overall, the program will not result in significant redistribution of affordable housing opportunities within the region. Only among rental housing units, which make up only 17 percent of estimated future residential development, is there the potential for progress toward fair share redistribution.

Fair Share or Status Quo?

This article presents an analysis of the potential impact of a program of regional fair share housing in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area: the Livable Communities Act (LCA). The author argues that fair share programs can be judged by two standards: (1) the degree to which they meet current and projected needs for affordable housing and (2) the extent to which they redistribute affordable housing opportunities throughout a region. The analysis shows that the LCA fails on the first of these standards and only minimally meets the second. Should program goals be fully met by all of the participating communities, the LCA will result in a decrease in the relative availability of affordable housing by 12 percent compared to a continuation of the status quo. In addition, overall, the program will not result in significant redistribution of affordable housing opportunities within the region. Only among rental housing units, which make up only 17 percent of estimated future residential development, is there the potential for progress toward fair share redistribution.

Housing Conflict and Domestic Property Classes in Rural Wales

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest amongst rural researchers in housing issues in the British countryside. While much of this work has consisted of policy reports highlighting the plight of low-incomed, predominantly younger members of rural society in their search for affordable housing opportunities, in two recent publications Shucksmith has attempted to introduce elements of Weberian housing theory into rural housing research. In this paper, based on research in rural Wales in the early 1990s, I examine such a theoretical approach to the study of rural housing. I explore Saunders's notion of domestic property classes in a rural context and those conflicts surrounding additional housing development in the countryside. I suggest that, although housing tenure plays an important part in influencing residents' opposition to further housing and perceptions of housing need in the local area, other factors including occupational class, stage in the life cycle, and lifestyle are also worthy of consideration. Moreover, it is argued that interests within the private capital class would appear to be more complicated than previously outlined.

Housing Vouchers and Certificates as a Vehicle for Deconcentrating the Poor

The authors analyze the census tract location of over 11,000 certificate and voucher households in Washington, D.C., and its suburbs, and compare those to the distribution of public housing and various other project-based subsidized housing developments such as Section 236. They find evidence that household mobility programs may be succeeding in the goal of dispersing affordable housing opportunities beyond the central-city boundary, but they also find evidence that market forces and personal choices may lead toward reconcentration of suburban voucher and certificate holders in neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status and higher proportions of minorities.

Homeless youth: statement of problem and suggested policies.

There are an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 adolescents living on the streets with no supervision, nurturance or regular assistance from a parent or responsible adult. These young people are not "Huck Finns" seeking adventure but have been forced into this lifestyle and frame of mind. The reasons range from family dysfunctions such as abuse, sexual exploitation, neglect, and abandonment to inaction at the "system" level with regard to the overburdened child protective system, inadequate minimum wage, and lack of affordable housing opportunities. The consequences of this national problem are devastating and must be responded to.