The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) continues to tackle the nation’s affordability challenges. In partnership with the NYU Urban Lab at the Schack Institute of Real Estate, the NMHC has released The Housing Affordability Toolkit, a policy resource outlining a roadmap for addressing the crisis.
The toolkit includes actionable solutions that policymakers can take to expand supply, increase choices for renters, and ultimately improve affordability.
“For generations, Americans have accepted housing affordability as a problem to manage, not solve. This toolkit rejects that premise entirely,” said NMHC president Sharon Wilson Géno. “With the right combination of deregulations, targeted affordability support, and preservation strategies, the math shows we can close the gap for all 22.4 million rent-burdened households within 17 years. The time is now for lawmakers at all levels of government to take action on behalf of not just those in need of housing today, but for decades to come.”
The toolkit provides a three-part strategy to preserve and increase supply and expand rental options:
- Creating and preserving low-cost housing without government subsidies. This includes naturally occurring affordable housing;
- Reducing barriers to housing development by embracing strategies such as streamlined development timelines as well as targeted tools like tax abatements; and
- Developing new public-private partnership programs to support the development of new affordable housing and help renters access new and existing housing.
According to the NMHC, the toolkit addresses how supply alone will not solve the affordability challenges for everyone. With approximately 10.1 million renters earning too little to afford housing without public assistance, it makes the case for expanding the low-income housing tax credit program as well as income assistance programs to help those most in need.
Matthew Kwatinetz, clinical associate professor and director of the NYU Urban Lab and author of the toolkit, said the toolkit is about taking a different tactic and creating an executable plan that aligns public and private action instead of substituting blame for the progress.
“Housing affordability will not change unless we change our approach. The numbers are too big to spin: 22.4 million rent-burdened households, 10.1 million households that can’t even afford to pay utility costs,” he added. “Relying on a tax credit-only path still takes 157 years in the best case. It is longer than the span since World War II and the resulting Great Society programs.”