Affordable Rental Housing Research Articles

Data-driven Strategies for Affordable Housing: A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm-Machine Learning Optimization Model in the Melbourne Metropolitan Area

Abstract. The escalating rental crisis in Australia, rooted in demographic dynamics, a scarcity of lands suitable for development and the influence of interest rates and government subsidies, necessitates innovative solutions for housing affordability. One promising approach is to increase the supply of affordable rental housing. Nevertheless, these efforts must be guided by well-informed policies as they are required to cater to the diverse needs of the stakeholders involved. Accordingly, this study aims to prioritize suburbs in the Melbourne Metropolitan area for the construction of apartment/unit buildings, benefiting both builders/investors and renters. Leveraging a hybrid Genetic Algorithm-Machine Learning (GA-ML) framework, multi-objective optimization models are developed to rank 105 suburbs based on key parameters for both builders/investors and renters. The optimization process seeks to maximize economic outlook and rental yields for builders/investors while minimizing rents and commuting distances for renters, in addition to proximity to essential amenities. First, an initial optimization using GA based on six key parameters is performed considering a linear multi-objective function. Subsequently, ML-based objective functions are defined using Random Forest (RF) and extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) models to refine the optimization model for suburb rankings. The evaluation reveals strong correlations between GA and GA-XGB rankings, suggesting the effectiveness of the GA-XGBoost model in prioritizing suburbs. Notably, suburbs consistently prioritized across all models include Brunswick, Coburg, Preston and Reservoir, highlighting their suitability for apartment/unit building construction. By directing attention to specific suburbs aligned with different stakeholders' needs and preferences, this study contributes to a more sustainable and equitable housing landscape.

Public perceptions of for-profit and nonprofit affordable rental housing providers

ABSTRACT This study uses a vignette experiment to examine public perceptions of for-profit and nonprofit affordable rental housing providers in a controlled environment. Consistent with the contract failure hypothesis, results suggest nonprofits generally are viewed more favorably than for-profits, both in terms of their perceived legitimacy to participate in the preservation of affordable rental housing and their perceived likelihood of treating affordable rental housing residents fairly. These findings offer some evidence that the framing of an affordable rental housing provider’s profit motive can have a significant impact on its ability to garner public support - support that is oftne necessary to carry out its work.

Gender and pathways to housing: in search of affordable and safe rental housing in a mid-sized Canadian city (Kelowna, B.C.)

ABSTRACT Housing is not merely a commodity but a fundamental human right and crucial for a good quality of life. In Kelowna, B.C., a city known for its high housing costs, women encounter significant obstacles in securing affordable rental housing. This study involving 25 women renting in Kelowna sheds light on their preferences, concerns, and strategies for navigating this challenging housing market. The research highlights that women prioritize rental units that are not only affordable but also safe and well-located. Key barriers identified include the high cost of housing, scarcity of affordable rental options in desirable neighborhoods, inadequate safety features in rental units, and discrimination based on income sources. Data was gathered through self-administered questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with ten key informants, revealing pervasive challenges and suggesting policy recommendations. These insights contribute to understanding the specific hurdles women face in securing affordable, suitable and adequate rental housing in mid-sized Canadian cities like Kelowna. Addressing these barriers requires multifaceted solutions, including increasing affordable housing options, improving safety standards, and policies that combat income-based discrimination. By implementing these measures, Kelowna can enhance housing accessibility and quality of life for all residents, particularly women struggling in the rental market.

China’s New Housing Security Model: Evaluation of the Job–Housing Balance in Affordable Rental Housing, Shanghai

The Chinese government’s recent low-income housing scheme aims to tackle housing challenges faced by the urban floating population. A notable shift in this initiative is the focus on the job–housing balance. This study proposes that the spatial interaction between land designated for affordable rental housing and land for commercial facilities serves as a fundamental metric for evaluating this equilibrium, providing insights into the effectiveness of China’s nascent affordable housing efforts. Drawing on post-2021 data, when China’s revamped affordable housing policy took effect, our research examines the spatial distribution of affordable rental housing and commercial service land in Shanghai. By employing coupled coordination models and local entropy metrics, we delve into the supply equilibrium and pragmatic interrelation of these land types. Our findings reveal localized clustering in the spatial arrangement of rental and commercial land within Shanghai. Zones in the urban core exhibit a supply balance, while the peripheries display diminishing accessibility between these land types. Core urban areas have a lower supply balance but higher accessibility, whereas urban fringes face both low supply balance and low accessibility. These study outcomes have significant implications for strategic planning and the construction of affordable rental housing.

Research on the path of local colleges participating in community education of affordable rental housing in industrial parks

The affordable rental housing community in industrial parks has become a large-scale community, but little attention has been paid to this type of community education. Therefore, based on the concept of educational equality, this project aims to explore the path of local colleges participating in community education for affordable rental housing in industrial parks. With convenient samples, empirical research is conducted on the current situation and residents’ needs of affordable rental housing community education in the Qianwan New Area Industrial Park. And it has been found that community residents have a high willingness to learn on one hand, however, on the other hand, there are few types of community education to meet their demand; Although there are many public space resources, the utilization of scene spaces is far from sufficient. Based on these findings, this research explores and proposes the paths for local colleges to participate in community education for affordable rental housing in industrial parks through resource sharing models, in-depth community services for all-age residential groups, the cultivation of application-oriented talents to promote the integration of industry and education and enriching spiritual connotation of community education content. By enhancing the quality of all-age residents, namely, the new citizens including industrial workers and their relatives, it can promote the construction of a learning-oriented society and contribute to the realization of common prosperity. This study has certain theoretical and practical significance in enriching the research field of community education, promoting social integration of new citizens, and helping to achieve common prosperity.

중국 공공임대주택의 주요 내용과 개선방안

China plans to build 6.5 million units of affordable housing in 40 cities from 2023 to 2025 to address housing issues, and local governments in cities such as Beijing and Chengdu are also announcing large-scale housing construction plans in line with the government’s public rental housing policy. As the Chinese government pushes forward with the construction of affordable housing, particularly public rental housing, related legal systems are being established and revised. This paper examines the newly introduced or revised legal systems related to public rental housing, to consider the main aspects of China’s public rental housing. For this discussion, we will first look at the significance of affordable rental housing and the meaning of public rental housing in turn, and then analyze the core contents of public rental housing that are currently being discussed. Additionally, through this, we aim to identify problems related to China’s public rental housing and suggest improvements.

Access to Land, Building Materials & Finance for Rental Housing Production in Dodoma Capital City, Tanzania

This paper presents study findings concerning rental housing delivery systems in accommodating low-income urban residents in Tanzania. Generally, the study intended to establish operational and workable policy options for promoting affordable rental houses to narrow the urban housing shortage gap that has been increasing over time. The study involved 100 property developers, eighteen (18) key informants, six (6) brokers, and fifteen (15) tenants who were purposely selected for the study. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through interviews with property developers, and focus group discussions with key informants and local leaders. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20 was employed in inferential and descriptive analysis. In line with this, a Chi-square technique was employed for describing the association between the variables while descriptive analysis was employed to describe the distribution of scores among the variables. The study has shown that 68% of property developers obtain land through an informal land market while the rest 32% obtain it from a formal market. Moreover, property developers have reported that savings are the dominant source of rental housing finance mechanisms in the study area which accounts for 65% of the housing finance mechanisms. Other sources are remittances (16%), pensions (8%), loans (7%), and borrowing from relatives (4%). The study has revealed that the Pearson chi-square value and significance value, confirm that, there is a significant association between affordability and the category of land market (= 65.696, P < 0.001). Furthermore, the study has evidenced that individual property developers are dominating the rental housing market in the absence of policies, regulations, standards, and plans that could take into consideration the access to rental housing for low-income urban residents. The study recommends to the central and local government that there should be an urgent strategy to establish an enabling housing policy to promote affordable rental housing as an option for low-income urban residents in Tanzania.

MOBA: Rethinking needs and financing for affordable rental and cooperative housing in Central and South-Eastern Europe

This conversation starts with the introduction of a large-scale research project conducted in 2022 in eight Central and South-Eastern European countries on how catalytic capital investment can enable the provision of affordable rental and cooperative housing in the region. The results of the project prove that while there is a large potential target group of such alternative housing models in these countries, the currently available housing finance tools are inadequate to help the emergence of the sector. In the second part of the conversation we introduce how MOBA Housing SCE intends to solve this problem through creating a bottom-up quasi revolving fund, which can financially help local projects in their early phase. Finally, we explain how MOBA approaches internationalism, co-housing principles, the need for shifting housing paradigms, and state socialist heritages of cooperativism.

A Study on Shenzhen’s Public Housing Policy to Address the Brain Drain Problem: A Sample of Affordable Rental Housing

A Study on Shenzhen’s Public Housing Policy to Address the Brain Drain Problem: A Sample of Affordable Rental Housing

Housing for talents: Highly skilled migrants’ strategies for accessing affordable rental housing

Aligned with industrial restructuring and upgrading in China, many cities have issued favourable ‘talent’ policies, including ‘talent housing’ policies, to attract and absorb highly skilled rural-to-urban migrants. One such policy has been for local governments to offer Affordable Rental Housing (ARH) for talents and their families. While the migration motives and labour market positions of highly skilled migrants are well-understood, significantly less attention has been paid to their housing circumstances. This paper explores the housing strategies of highly skilled newcomers in accessing subsidised housing in Shanghai (from rural-to-urban migrants’ perspective). The qualitative data was drawn from 62 in-depth interviews with migrants and analysed thematically using NVivo. This study extends existing theories by demonstrating that highly skilled migrants adopt multi-layered and multi-phased coping strategies. In their pursuit of desired housing outcomes, migrant applicants initiated multi-layered strategies, seeking information from diverse sources and evaluating their prospects. However, findings reveal that the actual institutional policy landscape sometimes conflicts with the proclaimed talent-oriented target, resulting in unexpected structural barriers and constraints. Consequently, highly skilled migrants are compelled to employ additional and ad hoc solutions, often deemed unsatisfactory and compromising. The paper then illustrates how coping becomes multi-phased as migrants grapple with these additional structural barriers, which their initial coping strategies alone cannot sufficiently address. By introducing the innovative concept of ‘coping with coping’, this paper enriches existing coping strategies and structuration theories, offering valuable insights for policymakers and government authorities.

Affordable Rental Housing for the Urban Seasonal Migrants in India

Affordable Rental Housing for the Urban Seasonal Migrants in India

The Affordable Rental Housing Crisis and Population Health Equity: a Multidimensional and Multilevel Framework.

The US is facing a severe affordable rental housing crisis that contributes to multiple forms of housing insecurity including homelessness, crowded and poor quality housing conditions, unstable housing arrangements, and cost burdens. A considerable body of evidence finds that housing insecurity is an important determinant of health. However, the existing literature may fall short of conceptualizing and measuring the full impact of housing insecurity on population health and on racial health equity. In this paper, we seek to expand the conceptualization of housing as a determinant of population health equity by considering housing insecurity as a manifestation of structural racism that intersects with other manifestations and impacts of structural racism to affect, not only the health of housing insecure individuals, but also the health of the networks and communities in which these individuals live. First, we situate the current housing crisis within larger systems of structural racism. We extend prior work documenting the confluence of ways that racist policies and practices have created unequal burdens of housing insecurity to also discuss the ways that the meanings and impacts of housing insecurity may be shaped by racism. Next, we consider how the health impacts of this unequal burden of housing insecurity can extend beyond individual households to affect networks and communities. Ultimately, we provide a multilevel framework that can inform research, policy, and practice to address housing and health equity.

Changing roles of the state in the development of long-term rental apartments under a transitional housing regime in China

Long-term rental apartments (LRAs) are booming in Chinese megacities in recent years, largely facilitated by various forms of state intervention in the private rental sector. Focusing on the state’s endeavours in promoting LRA development and incorporating it into the affordable rental housing scheme nationwide, this study explores the changing roles of the state in two stages of LRA development through the conceptual lens of housing regime. Drawing on a comprehensive policy analysis and a field investigation in Beijing, our major findings are threefold. First, two stages of LRA development—market-led under state supervision (from 2015 to 2019) and state-led development (after 2019) are identified, in which highly responsive state interventions were introduced to cope with the housing affordability crisis and maintain social stability. Second, the role of the state shifted from a facilitator to an active participant with the deepening involvement of state-owned enterprises in the rental housing market. Third, a transitional housing regime shifting from a productivist regime to a developmental regime is underway to achieve different socioeconomic goals. This study enriches our conceptual and empirical understanding of the latest episode of housing and land policies in response to the volatile political and socioeconomic climate by introducing a transitional housing regime in urban China.

Rent affordability after hurricanes: Longitudinal evidence from US coastal states.

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of natural hazards such as hurricanes. With a severe shortage of affordable housing in the United States, renters may be uniquely vulnerable to disaster-related housing disruptions due to increased hazard exposure, physical vulnerability of structures, and socioeconomic disadvantage. In this work, we construct a panel dataset consisting of housing, socioeconomic, and hurricane disaster data from counties in 19 states across the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States from 2009 to 2018 to investigate how the frequency and intensity of a hurricane correspond to changes in median rent and housing affordability (the interaction between rent prices and income) over time. Using a two-stage least square random-effects regression model, we find that more intense prior-year hurricanes correspond to increases in median rents via declines in housing availability. The relationship between hurricanes and rent affordability is more complex, though the occurrence of a hurricane in a given year or the previous year reduces affordable rental housing, especially for counties with higher percentages of renters and people of color. Our results highlight the multiple challenges that renters are likely to face following a hurricane, and we emphasize that disaster recovery in short- and medium-term should focus on providing safe, stable, and affordable rental housing assistance.

МЕХАНІЗМИ РОЗВИТКУ ЖИТЛОВОГО БУДІВНИЦТВА

The article describes the essence, content and functions of the mechanisms for the revival of housing construction in Ukraine. Its development and implementation envisages the revival of the country, the multifaceted socio-economic development of settlements, the improvement of the demographic situation, and the appeal to man as the main source of the nation's wealth. It has been proven that all European countries have gone through a long process of reforming and developing the construction industry, applying new investment technologies and stimulating the development of this direction of the economy, combining state support, the mortgage lending mechanism and other types of construction support. In the economy of our country, many variants of management mechanisms are used - economic, ecological, market, social, organizational, organizational-economic and others. After the full-scale invasion, almost all developers stopped construction, some for several weeks, some did not continue construction at all. It was determined that in 2022 the total area of ready-made apartments amounted to 7.1 million square meters. m (18.3 thousand private houses and 74.3 thousand apartments), which is 38% less than in 2021. It has been proven that in Ukraine it is not enough to stimulate the development of the construction industry at the state level, it is important to create conditions for the development of a competitive environment, to introduce effective financial and credit mechanisms for the purchase of construction materials. The construction industry should be based on trust in the banking sector of the economy and stimulate the development of affordable rental housing for the low-income population and internally displaced persons. We believe that the housing market in Ukraine is currently in a recovery phase. The prospect of its development requires the creation of an effective organizational and economic mechanism, as well as the implementation of state support for the provision of social housing for the population of the region and those forced to leave their place of residence. Development of mechanisms and means of housing construction, economic stabilization and revival of the country require further development and scientific research

The Importance of Housing Organizations for The Development of Affordable Rental Housing

Housing creates the conditions for exploiting the potential of the area as well as attracting skilled labour to the urban area, as well as improving the quality of life. Worldwide experience shows that the normal market environment does not allow addressing the housing needs of all population groups in a sufficiently flexible way.

Increase Government Support for Build-to-Rent: Should We Expect Affordable Housing?

Build-to-rent (BTR) is an important pathway for rental housing supply across the cities of Australia. The discourse has become more prevalent as stakeholders seek government support to expand the sector to provide, amongst other reform measures, affordable rental accommodation. This paper examines the effectiveness of BTR as a pathway to affordable housing supply in Australia and identifies the additional reforms needed to increase that supply further. Interviews with key stakeholders were used to assess the success of the asset class to date and how it is likely to perform in increasing affordable rental housing supply, as well as what additional reforms may be required to expedite supply. The paper found that while BTR aims to scale up rental housing supply, its limitations in its present form demonstrate the need for additional reforms. At present, unfavorable taxes, inner-city locational attributes, and ultramodern services make the asset class a high-end housing model. Experts posit that BTR rental prices are justified given the quality amenities and the 24/7 onsite professional management. While it is a premium product, several BTR projects in Australia have included portions of those projects for affordable housing. The study concluded that BTR can generate affordable housing outcomes in Australia. As more developments take place across the private sector, several regulatory reforms in land release and taxes are needed to produce a sizable portfolio of affordable BTR. Without government support and regulation through additional supply-side incentives, development and recurrent holding costs will remain high, making BTR unaffordable to many urban residents.

Can They Build or Not? Nonprofit Housing Development in an Era of Government Re-engagement

In the context of new government investment in housing, this article explores the experiences of nonprofit organizations in securing support for new affordable rental housing development in three regions across Canada. Many challenges were reported, including ones pertaining to administration (extensive proposal requirements, lack of information and communication, and lengthy review processes), and the design of funding programs (such as a lack of flexibility available to proponents). Participants also reported limitations to the amount and nature of support provided, challenges working across different levels of government, and an uneven playing field among nonprofit and for-profit housing developers. Overall, results show that despite significant and recent investments made available for affordable housing, the nonprofit sector faces many barriers in accessing these, and that significant changes are required so that housing organizations may provide rental units to those in greatest need.

Models of residential buildings with affordable housing for settlements of different sizes

The importance of creating high-quality housing units with affordable housing in the resettlement system is highlighted. Some examples of affordable housing in world practice are analyzed. The importance of the location of a residential unit with affordable housing on the quality of living in it and on some characteristics of such housing, such as price and number of floors, is described.
 A number of authors who studied the formation of the urban environment and their problems are cited.
 The article proposes several universal models of residential formation with affordable housing for a large city (model of residential formation with affordable housing in the structure of a residential group) and for a small settlement (model of residential formation of blocked buildings), which are based on the principles of multi-comfort and sustainable development, taking into account the development in time.
 The main areas of residential formation have been determined. The need for integration of different types of housing in the residential formation is indicated, such as: commercial housing of various comforts, affordable housing, social housing, rental housing, affordable rental housing. The importance of determining the appropriate percentage of integration of different typologies of housing is highlighted, and its schematic marking on general plans of territories is proposed.
 The necessity of designing a residential building with the integration of public service premises and places of employment is indicated. Insert blocks with public, communication and social significance in a residential structure for block or individual construction in small settlements are proposed.
 A number of important tasks that must be solved by the development of urban planning documentation (establishing the territories or plots of the location of affordable housing; the planned percentage of such housing in a district, quarter or building; determining the required number and calculation of types of apartments, etc.) are given.

Research on the Design of Shanghai Affordable Rental Housing

Research on the Design of Shanghai Affordable Rental Housing