The Market Is Still Not Seeing Enough Affordable and Workforce Housing
October 22, 2019 | Bendix Anderson | National Real Estate Investor
Developers are likely to finish work on more than 100,000 new or renovated apartments affordable to low-income families in 2019. It will not be enough to satisfy existing market demand.
According to Michael Gaber, president of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition (AHTCC), based in Washington, D.C., more than 10 million households nationwide pay more than half of their income on rent. That leaves too little money for other expenses, including health care, transportation and nutritious food, he says.
To create more affordable housing, lawmakers in Congress propose to expand the federal low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC), the leading program to finance affordable housing. Local officials in municipalities throughout U.S. have also relied on program like inclusionary zoning, which asks apartment developers in certain locations to include affordable units in their projects in exchange for the right to build.
