In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

In recent years, housing has all but disappeared from national-level debate except for occasional discussions of a possible housing “bubble” and the alltoo -brief concern about emergency housing needs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Despite the lack of sustained attention, our country’s housing challenges are changing in ways that not only affect an expanding segment of the population but also implicate other top domestic priorities. Some states and localities are starting to respond to these challenges in new and creative ways. But federal housing policy—particularly rental housing policy—is not getting the serious national attention it warrants. One-third of all Americans rent the homes and apartments in which they live.1 Some are renters by choice—because they are highly mobile or prefer not to assume the responsibilities of homeownership. But most who rent do so out of necessity—because they have limited savings or lack the income necessary to cover the costs of homeownership. And a growing share of renters cannot find homes or apartments that they can reasonably afford. As of 2005, more than 16 million households—up from about 13 million in 2000—spent more than 30 percent of their monthly income on housing, a cost burden defined as unaffordable by federal standards. Almost two-thirds of these cost-burdened renters had annual 319 Rethinking U.S. Rental Housing Policy: A New Blueprint for Federal, State, and Local Action bruce katz and margery austin turner 10 1. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Communities Survey, 32.9 percent of all households—more than 36 million households—were renters in 2004 (Census Bureau 2005, table B11012, “Household Type, by Tenure”). incomes below $20,000. But the share of higher-income renters who are paying housing costs they can ill afford is also rising; from 2000 to 2005, the share of renters with incomes over $35,000 whose housing cost burdens were considered unaffordable climbed from 6.4 percent to 12.2 percent.2 Moreover, as metropolitan areas sprawl outward and jobs become increasingly dispersed, fewer low-wage renters can find housing near their work. While employment growth is fastest in the low-density counties on the fringes of America’s metropolitan areas, affordable housing—and affordable rental housing, in particular— remains disproportionately located in inner-city and older suburban neighborhoods . In fact, in many metro areas, a substantial share of the affordable rental stock is concentrated in distressed, high-poverty neighborhoods. Despite the magnitude and urgency of these problems, the current debate on federal housing policy amounts to little more than squabbling over crumbs. At present, federal policy seems defined almost exclusively by the fiscal imperative— that is, the pressure to reduce domestic discretionary spending—rather than by how best to address the nation’s housing concerns. Moreover, today’s congressional housing coalition is a mere shadow of its former self. Congressional response to the Millennial Housing Commission’s report in 2002 paled in comparison with the reception given the National Housing (“Rouse-Maxwell”) Task Force in the late 1980s. While that group’s efforts resulted in the passage of the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990, the 2002 commission’s findings have been all but ignored. As long as the federal housing policy conversation remains limited to tinkering with existing programs, no real progress seems possible. But we are hopeful that federal housing policy can be reinvigorated. This optimism is founded in the efforts of many state and local governments to fill the void with imaginative solutions , thus acting as laboratories for innovative policies that might eventually succeed at the national level. Our optimism also stems from the vibrant state and local political coalitions that are successfully pushing through meaningful housing reforms and initiatives. Notably, these coalitions are using fresh language, deploying new arguments, and involving powerful partners from the business community in their push for change—a potential model for building broader support for a reinvigorated housing policy at the federal level, as well. Inspired by this backdrop of state and local energy, we propose here a new blueprint for the nation’s rental-housing policy. Our blueprint responds to the root causes of current challenges, respects the creativity and increasing capacity of state and local governments, and reconnects housing policy to the larger issues that Americans care about. This blueprint also aims to catalyze local markets—as fed320 bruce katz and margery austin turner 2. Census Bureau (2000, table H73, “Housing Income by Gross Rent...

Share