GRAPEVINE
How to Make Housing Matter
AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE • AUGUST 2007
Another round of statistics on the
worsening affordable housing
crisis hit reporters’ inboxes in
June. Rising costs and stagnant
incomes mean the number of
households with severe housing cost burdens
will just keep growing, according to the
Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
The good news is that incredible affordable
housing projects are going up all over this
country. We hear about them every day, and in
this issue, you will read about some of the very
best, the finalists in our Readers’ Choice
Awards contest for 2007.
We received nearly 150 entries in this
year’s contest, and I have to tell you, most of
them are very attractive and well targeted projects.
It was very difficult to reduce the field to
the 36 finalists profiled in
this issue.
Now it’s your
turn:
Read about them and
vote for your favorite in
each category with our online ballot.
Remember, you
choose the winners, so
please take the time to
vote.
I want to thank the
sponsors of all the projects
that were submitted,
including the finalists and
those that were not selected.
I thank them not only
for participating, but for hanging in there
against the odds to get their projects built.
Most of the projects we reviewed could
not have happened without excellent cooperation
from state and local governments, and
private funding sources. And even then, none
of them were easy or inexpensive.
The entries in this year’s contest illustrate
what’s possible. But they also remind me
of how much more needs to be done to keep
up with the continually increasing need that
Harvard’s Joint Center cited.
State and local officials increasingly get
the picture of how the housing shortage hurts
their communities and their citizens. But as
we enter a new presidential election cycle,
housing is, once again, low on the list of priorities
for national politicians.
The one very notable exception is Rep.
Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat
who chairs the House Financial Services
Committee. His panel has produced an
impressive amount of smart housing legislation,
including a bill to reform Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac and have them fund more
affordable housing, and a housing voucher
reform bill. Now the panel is working on a bill
to create a National Housing Trust Fund.
Frank and his committee are to be commended
for their accomplishments. Now it’s
up to you to take action to make sure the
Senate does not let those bills die, which is a
very real prospect, judging from the apparent
lack of activity by the Senate Banking
Committee and its subcommittee on housing.
We all need to make the case for putting
housing higher on the political priority list.
First, let’s look beyond the constant flow
of statistics on housing needs. The statistics in
the Harvard report and other studies are useful.
But data is very abstract—it has no power
to motivate the media or opinion leaders.
We need to find a way to dramatize the
impact of the growing number of families
with high housing cost burdens and inadequate,
poorly located or overcrowded housing.
Do kids get sick more often or do badly in
school? Do families fall apart? Does it put
greater burdens on the courts, the schools, the
police? Do longer commutes increase traffic?
We also need to put out more information on
how it helps society as a whole to help people
get decent housing at an affordable cost.
Help us document the negative impact of
the housing crunch on your community as a
whole, and the positive benefits of providing
affordable housing. Tell us your stories. Better
yet, tell your members of Congress, especially
your senators.
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