ISSUE ANALYSIS

To see the HUD’s online listing of the federal affordable housing programs available, go to , click here

The National Low Income Housing Coalition released a 2002 report Out of Reach, which compares the wages and rents in every county and state in the country.  To see this report, click here

Included in this report is a ranking of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico based on the affordability of 2-bedroom housing.  To see the ranking, click here 

The California Budget Project released a report in October of 2002 entitled Locked Out 2002: California's Affordable Housing Crisis Continues, which concludes that the housing shortage crisis in California will continue, with low-income households feeling the most pressure.

Inclusionary Zoning: A Viable Solution to the Affordable Housing Crisis?

An issue of New Century Housing, a report of the Center for Housing Policy, adapted for this web site by permission

Housing Strategies to Strengthen Welfare Policy and Support Working Families from the Center on Urban & Metropolitan Policy at the The Brookings Institution, and The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The primary recommendations of this article are:

• Enable more families that are moving from welfare to work to receive housing assistance by:

  • Making it simpler for states to use TANF funds to provide supplemental housing benefits

  • Funding new welfare to work vouchers

  • Providing funds to HHS to conduct a joint HHS/HUD demonstration project for families with multiple barriers to work that combines housing assistance with services

• Help families move to affordable housing closer to jobs by:

  • Providing funds to help families with vouchers move closer to jobs

  • Revising the Low Income Housing Tax Credit statute to encourage the development of rental housing for families with children in job-growth areas

  • Authorizing and appropriating funds for new “Thrifty Production Vouchers”

  • Funding production of additional rental housing for families with children

• Promote closer alignment between housing and welfare policies and programs by:

  • Encouraging cooperation between welfare agencies and housing agencies; requiring states to consider housing needs in TANF planning and implementation

  • Funding an earnings disregard for Section 8 families

  • Expanding the Family Self-Sufficiency Program

  • Revising federal law to help increase the proportion of children receiving housing assistance that live with both parents

Low Income Housing Profile from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which provides a statistical analysis of the housing crisis in the U.S. based upon the 1999 American Housing Survey.

Everyone’s Valley: Inclusion and Affordable Housing in Silicon Valley from Working Partnerships USA

Affordable Housing: A Crisis for Wisconsin Families from the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families

The materials in this package come in large part from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the National Housing Law Project, California Budget Project, Innovative Housing Institute, The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Working Partnerships USA, Wisconsin Council on Children & Families.  The Service Center would like to thank these groups for mapping out the high road on reforming the state affordable housing system.

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