Affordable Housing Projects

What actually increases economic mobility in distressed neighborhoods? New research from Opportunity Insights on the $17B HOPE VI program provides a clear answer: integration matters more than infrastructure. Revitalization significantly improved long-term outcomes for children—higher earnings, more college attendance, lower incarceration. Adults saw little income change. The difference? Social exposure. Neighborhoods that connected low-income children to broader, more economically diverse networks produced lasting gains. Projects located in deeply isolated areas showed little impact—even with new buildings. That distinction is critical. For city leaders and housing practitioners, the implications are practical: ➡️ Mixed-income housing works best when adjacent to stronger neighborhoods. ➡️ Zoning reform is foundational—high-opportunity areas must allow housing growth. ➡️ Transit (especially flexible bus systems) expands daily economic access. ➡️ Early childhood investment multiplies long-term returns. ➡️ Housing programs are most effective when paired with social support and network-building. Perhaps most importantly: integration can generate large gains for low-income children without reducing outcomes for higher-income peers. Revitalization is not just about physical renewal. It is about expanding access to opportunity networks. For cities facing fiscal strain, this is not only a social equity strategy—it is a long-term economic growth strategy. The takeaway is straightforward: If we want to improve mobility, we must reduce isolation. The Brookings Institution had an excellent panel on this. If anyone wants to watch, ask in the comments. For those working on the issue, how are you adapting your programs to incorporate these findings? #relationships #community #neighborhood #equity #inequality Purpose Built Communities Placemaking Education Cormac Russell Frances Kraft Vanessa Elias Usha Srinivasan Jennifer Prophete Kara Revel Jarzynski Kevin Ervin Kelley, AIA Lory Warren Noah Baskett Matt Abrams Anna Scott Ethan Kent John B. Carol Naughton Sarah Strimmenos Ben Lewis Tim Tompkins Aaron Kuecker Aaron Hurst Tim Soerens Sam Pressler Tracy Hadden Loh David Erickson Robert Steuteville Shawn Duncan Mollie Johnson Lenore Skenazy Katie Delp Carol Naughton

India’s cities are expanding at an unprecedented pace. Affordable housing, however, is not keeping up. The future urban challenge is not only home ownership. It is the availability of quality, well-managed rental housing for the people who form the backbone of our cities. This is where Charitable Trusts must evolve. Amending the Charitable Trust Act can play a transformative role by enabling trusts to develop, own, and manage affordable rental housing at scale—as a service, not merely as a project. This includes: • Service housing for essential workers such as healthcare staff, municipal employees, and support services • Industrial housing for factory and logistics workers located close to employment hubs • Student housing that is safe, affordable, and proximate to educational institutions • Trust-led rental housing for vulnerable and transitional populations Such an ecosystem would reduce urban congestion, improve workforce productivity, and enhance quality of life—while ensuring long-term affordability, social accountability, and institutional governance. If India is to build inclusive cities, housing policy must move beyond ownership models and embrace rental infrastructure as a public good. #AffordableHousing #UrbanIndia #RentalHousing #CharitableTrusts #PolicyReform #InclusiveGrowth #CityPlanning #WorkforceHousing #StudentHousing #SocialInfrastructure

For your weekend reading, some critically important findings out this week from Raj Chetty and the team at Opportunity Insights . This rigorous study focuses on HOPE VI, which replaced high-poverty public housing with mixed-income housing in places throughout the country, starting in the early 1990s. The benefit for low-income kids of building relationships with peers from higher-income families was astonishing: as Nick Kristof notes, a 17 percent increase in the likelihood of attending college, a projected half-million-dollar boost in earnings, and, for boys, a 20 percent lower chance of ending up incarcerated. It’s an important addition to Dr. Chetty’s unmatched body of work revealing the factors that shape opportunity in America. And it underlines a larger truth: the environments in which our kids live, learn, and grow have exceptional power to shape their trajectory. When leaders make wise decisions, young people will rise. This new research also serves as a powerful reminder about both the benefits and costs of community change. One of the HOPE VI sites highlighted was Techwood Homes in downtown Atlanta, where I volunteered while attending Morehouse in the late 80s. Before their demolition, the Techwood Homes were notorious, but they were also people’s homes — a place with history that caused a real sense of loss when they were torn down. What replaced them were far better places to live — and gave young people far better life opportunities, as Dr. Chetty’s research shows. There’s much for us to learn about making change that is not just beneficial, but also humane and empathetic. https://lnkd.in/eb5cPNpN

In January, Opportunity Insights published a report examining the long-term effect of the HOPE VI program. To refresh, HOPE VI was one of the most ambitious efforts to break up urban concentrations of poverty in U.S. history. From 1993 to 2010, the program invested $17 billion in public and private capital to revitalize over 250 high poverty public housing projects. The method of intervention was harsh and decisive: funds were used to demolish and replace “severely distressed” public housing projects with developments that were mixed income and better integrated with surrounding communities and local schools. The Opportunity Insights research vindicates the hard, controversial decisions that were made decades ago. Researchers found that children living in economically integrated developments earned more, were more likely to attend college, and were less likely to be incarcerated, driven by network effects and changes in social interactions. As someone deeply involved in the bipartisan design and delivery of HOPE VI in the 1990s, my latest piece celebrates the research findings. But I also lay out four major reasons for concern: (a) I doubt that HOPE VI could even be enacted today, given the evisceration of centrist coalitions in Congress; (b) the focus on process over outcomes at the community level has become a barrier to transformative interventions; (c) economic integration has lost its hold on policymakers and practitioners; and (d) HOPE VI developments, the impetus for these findings, are physically deteriorating without a clear mechanism for sustained operations. I end with a call for "people and places" to be put back at the center of housing and neighborhood policy and undergird the current focus on expanding housing supply (which is necessary but not sufficient). A focus on using housing policy to create "neighborhoods of choice and connection" must again become part of our national vision. National Housing Crisis Task Force Henry Cisneros Colin Higgins Michael Saadine Joshua Humphries https://lnkd.in/eUwaWnvq

The Balance Sheet Problem in Affordable Housing In my last post, I wrote about the capital gap in affordable housing. Market developers optimize the use of cash. Non-market housing providers often focus on minimizing the need for cash. But the deeper issue isn’t just cash. It’s balance sheets. ✨ Development Requires Equity Every real estate project needs three basic ingredients: 1. Debt 2. Equity 3. Cash flow Market developers bring equity to the table. Their balance sheets allow them to borrow, manage risk, and recycle capital into new projects. ✨ Non-profit housing providers operate very differently ✨ Most organizations have: - limited reserves - aging portfolios - restricted capital - little ability to raise equity As a result, projects are often assembled through complex capital stacks: • government grants • subsidized loans • land contributions • philanthropy These tools are important, but they don’t replace equity capital. The Hidden Constraint When affordable housing projects stall, the conversation usually focuses on: zoning approvals construction costs labour shortages Those issues matter. But in many cases the real constraint is simpler: There isn’t enough equity to make projects viable. Without equity, organizations struggle to: carry pre-development risk secure construction financing move quickly when opportunities appear scale development pipelines In other words, the sector spends enormous effort assembling projects, rather than building housing. The Next Evolution If Canada wants to scale affordable housing, we need to think differently about capital. A few ideas already emerging across the sector include: Revolving capital funds Allowing organizations to recycle equity into future projects. Community bonds Giving communities a way to invest directly in housing. Portfolio-based financing Strengthening balance sheets rather than funding one project at a time. Public capital partnerships Governments acting as catalytic equity partners instead of only grant providers. These tools are not silver bullets. But they start addressing the real structural issue. ❓ The Real Question Affordable housing isn’t just a policy problem. It’s a capital problem. Until we build stronger balance sheets in the non-market housing sector, we will continue asking organizations without equity to solve a problem that fundamentally requires it. And that’s a difficult way to build housing. Three Takeaways 1️⃣ Equity unlocks development Grants help projects start, but equity allows organizations to scale. 2️⃣ Balance sheets matter Stronger organizations can take risk, borrow effectively, and move faster. 3️⃣ Capital innovation is essential Community bonds, revolving funds, and portfolio financing may be key to the next phase of affordable housing. #AffordableHousing #HousingFinance #HousingPolicy #ImpactInvesting #RealEstateDevelopment #NonProfitHousing #SocialInfrastructure

Tapping a resource of good land: Churches are some of the oldest landowners in post-settlement Australia, and they often have the best-located land, in urban centres, close to transport and other amenities. Could they use their land holdings for housing development? Former NSW planning minister Rob Stokes thinks they could. A change of zoning from the infrastructure/community purpose classification that covers most land used by faith organisations could open them up for housing development. Their holdings are huge - 28.4 million sqm in NSW, QLD, WA & SA alone, based on work by Faith Housing Australia and Kent Andrew Lardner's #SuburbTrends - and while much of it is already used (a cathedral's gotta sit somewhere, right?) even 10% of those holdings could be used to create 'tens of thousands' of new social and affordable homes, Stokes says. #propertydevelopment #socialhousing #affordablehousing The Australian Financial Review https://lnkd.in/gji_R5yT

From Listening to Action: How the Community Rent Model Came to Life “Why did you create the Community Rent model?” It’s a question I hear often, and the answer is both simple and powerful: by truly listening to people and delving into the data. During my time as a council leader in Barking and Dagenham, I saw the struggles many families faced. At first glance, it seemed like the majority were battling low incomes, but the data told a more nuanced story. Families on our housing waiting list earned between £20,000 and £60,000. Traditional council housing stock is primarily used for households in need with set at earning around £18,000. This left a huge gap. Many hardworking families couldn’t afford private rents, didn’t qualify for council housing, and were priced out of buying a home. These were families in the “missing middle,” and we needed a solution to meet their needs. This innovative approach introduced: Capped rents at 40% of household income, ensuring housing was fair and affordable. A structure that welcomed everyone, eliminating the stigma of “poor doors.” Long term public and private investment, enabling us to deliver affordable homes across different rent levels—council-equivalent rents, London affordable rents, and intermediate rents—all without relying on grant funding. The outcome was transformative: a mixed-income, balanced community where key workers like nurses and teachers, alongside families in transition, could find a home that matched their needs and aspirations. Housing isn’t just about bricks and mortar—it’s social infrastructure, as vital as schools and hospitals. This concept isn’t new. Policies like the Housing of the Working Classes Act (1890) and the Addison Act (1919) recognised housing’s critical role in building strong communities. Today, we need to return to that mindset. This means removing the stigma around affordable housing and reframing it as an investment in people and places. The Infrastructure Homes concept grew from this thinking. It’s a unified housing model that prioritises: Affordability: Housing costs tied to income, offering transparency and fairness. Flexibility: Options that adapt to household needs and circumstances. Inclusion: A model that fosters diverse communities while ensuring people feel valued, not labelled because of their circumstances. This model eliminates stigma, encourages fairness, and ensures that everyone regardless of their income can access housing that works for them. If one household can afford to pay a little more while still needing support, it strengthens the system for everyone. The Community Rent model is about more than just housing it’s about creating opportunity, fostering resilience, and making fairness the foundation of our communities. By focusing on these principles, we can tackle the housing crisis in a way that uplifts everyone. Let’s keep pushing for bold solutions that make housing work for all. #InclusiveGrowth #InfrastructureHomes #FairnessInHousing

Metro Manila home prices are 19.8x median income for condominiums, 33.4x for townhouses, making the capital one of Asia's least affordable cities. The fundamental challenge? Traditional homeownership models tie land appreciation directly to housing costs, making homes increasingly unaffordable over time. When families can't build wealth through homeownership, entire communities suffer economically. Community Land Trusts offer a proven alternative that's worked globally for decades. In Burlington, Vermont, CLTs have maintained affordability for over 35 years while families still build equity. Singapore's HDB system (essentially a government-scale CLT) houses 80% of the population affordably. Barcelona uses CLTs to combat gentrification while preserving community character. What's a Community Land Trust? → Community steward holds land permanently → Families own homes through 99-year ground leases → Resale caps maintain affordability forever → Land appreciation stays with the community How it could work in the Philippines: → Housing cooperatives hold land under existing law → Community Mortgage Program structures for community land acquisition → SHFC (Social Housing Finance Corporation) financing mechanisms already in place → LGUs contribute land through usufruct agreements The beauty lies in the mechanics: the community steward retains land ownership while families build equity in their homes through ground leases with carefully structured resale caps. This creates sustainable partnerships that advance both public policy goals and private sector delivery capacity. Unlike pure rental models, families accumulate wealth. Unlike traditional ownership, affordability persists across generations. If you're a developer, LGU, or just an affordable housing advocate, let's have a chat. I believe CLTs represent the structural innovation our industry needs to deliver on both profitability and social impact objectives.

I just attended a Citywide Housing Incentive Program (CHIP) meeting, and I seemed to be the only developer in the room. Where are the rest of the housing professionals? We need to start attending these meetings, being proactive, and giving feedback because the decisions being made today will impact our future and livelihoods. Here's a summary of the key points from the meeting: What is CHIP? It's one of the biggest undertakings by City Planning to increase capacity for market-rate and affordable housing. The focus is on higher opportunity areas while strengthening tenant protections. The Programs within CHIP: State Density Bonus Program: Clarifies procedures and aligns with State Density Bonus Law. Mixed Income Incentive Program: Offers incentives for housing development in higher opportunity areas, expanding access to jobs, and reducing reliance on cars. Affordable Housing Incentive Program: Aims at 100% affordable housing with unique incentives. What are the next steps? There will be 2-3 draft revisions, with the next draft in a few weeks. The new draft is expected by Summer 2024, and adoption is expected in February 2025. Benefits and Eligibility Criteria: Incentives include a density bonus for a percentage of affordable units, setback reductions, and by-right public benefits like child care and open space. CHIP doesn't apply to Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones (VHFHSZZ), Sea Level Rise Areas, or contaminated sites. It also excludes single-family zones, which has been a contentious point during the program's development. To learn more, check out the CHIP Fact Sheet and the draft ordinance on the City Planning website. https://lnkd.in/gXJPawFe Join me in attending future meetings and providing feedback to make a difference in our community's housing policies. Please also send you feedback or take some of the below items and send it to housingelement@lacity.org SUGGESTED FEEDBACK: Make it clear which rental schedules apply for each incentive. Why is the affordability requirement 99 years when subsidized projects only require 55 years? Why are we adding arguably punitive restrictions on developers using their own funds and building more cost-effectively? Mixed income developments should receive the highest incentives, as opposed to 100% affordable projects. Consider removing R1 zoning from the exclusion list. If it's around High-Quality Transit Areas, include language that if a parcel is eligible for 5 units under state housing laws, it should fall under CHIP. Allow future acquisitions for faith-based organizations and expand eligibility to non-profits. Remove the 15-year-old requirement in the ARO. Ensure the ARO Ordinance considers the proposed state bill.

While no single piece of legislation can solve America's housing shortage overnight, the newly enacted 21st Century #ROADtoHousingAct represents one of the most significant bipartisan housing efforts in decades. Its greatest strength is not any one provision, but rather its focus on addressing the structural barriers that have constrained housing supply for years. One area that deserves particular attention is the potential for Accessory Dwelling Units (#ADUs). ADUs offer a rare housing solution that benefits nearly everyone: ✅ They expand housing inventory without requiring large new subdivisions or expensive public-sector construction programs. ✅ They create housing in existing neighborhoods where jobs, schools, and infrastructure already exist. ✅ They provide homeowners with an opportunity to generate additional income, helping offset rising housing costs, property taxes, insurance premiums, and mortgage payments. ✅ They can create more housing options for multigenerational families, aging parents, caregivers, adult children, and workforce households. California has already demonstrated what is possible. Cotality's Matt Delventhal showed this in his most recent analysis (with more to come): https://lnkd.in/g76CcsCz. Since regulatory reforms were enacted, ADU construction has grown dramatically and has become an increasingly important source of new housing production across the state. In a housing market where affordability remains a challenge and financing large-scale development is increasingly difficult, ADUs effectively turn existing homeowners into small-scale housing providers, particularly given that existing homeowners currently own $35 Trillion of the $48 Trillion of residential value . Rather than placing the entire burden of solving the housing shortage on governments, builders, or institutional investors, ADUs allow households themselves to become part of the solution. Economically, this is an important shift. Homeowners gain an income-producing asset, communities gain housing diversity, and the market gains incremental supply. While ADUs alone will not eliminate the nation's estimated housing deficit, they represent one of the most scalable, politically feasible, and financially sustainable ways to increase supply over time. The ROAD to Housing Act will not produce immediate affordability relief. But if every community added a few more homes through ADUs, #duplexes, and other small-scale #infill housing, the cumulative impact on affordability could be far greater than many realize. #Housing #RealEstate #Affordability #ADUs #HousingSupply #ROADtoHousingAct #Economics #HousingPolicy #Homeownership #Cotality