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Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 5:54 PM
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Lessons from Overseas Could Improve the US’s Affordability Crisis

Lessons from Overseas Could Improve the US’s Affordability Crisis


April 20, 2021

By Yonah Freemark

Read More: https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/les...ability-crisis

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Our new research explores how affordable housing conditions in the largest US urban areas compare with those in France and the United Kingdom. We found US renters have a harder time affording and accessing housing than their European counterparts and point to several ways US policymakers could implement lessons from overseas. This work builds on our recent research comparing how the structure of local government powers and resources varies dramatically by both nation and region in ways that can attenuate or exacerbate spatial dimensions of inequality.

- How available are federal affordable housing subsidies in the largest US urban areas, and how do they compare with conditions in other countries? We examined this question by quantifying project-based and tenant-based housing support in the Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York metropolitan areas and comparing that level of assistance with conditions in France and the United Kingdom. We examined the three largest urban areas in each of those countries: Lyon, Marseille, and Paris, and Birmingham, London, and Manchester, respectively. We found a far larger share of households in the French and UK urban areas benefit from national low-income housing assistance (25 percent and higher in each region) than in the US urban areas (10 percent and below). — These gaps are a consequence of two major differences between the US and its European peers. — First, there is more funding for project-based affordable housing in France and the UK than in the United States. France has about as many affordable social housing units (4.7 million) as the United States has federally subsidized units (about 4.9 million), despite the United States having a population that is almost five times as large. — Second, both France and the United Kingdom provide entitlement housing benefits, meaning all families with low incomes qualify for assistance to pay rent. In the United States, Congress only appropriates enough money for the Housing Choice Voucher Program to cover about one-fifth of the people who qualify for it based on income.

- We also evaluated how affordable housing is distributed within each urban area. This is an important issue because metropolitan areas in each country are jurisdictionally fragmented meaning they are composed of many individual municipalities, and each individual municipality makes choices related to land use and housing provision. We found that suburban communities in the United States are particularly adept at leveraging their local power to exclude both project- and tenant-based assisted housing. Affordable housing units are far more likely to be concentrated in just a few municipalities in US regions. Because wealthy households have concentrated themselves into tightly defined areas in the United States, that also means families with low incomes are unlikely to be able to access the high-quality public services and jobs many wealthier jurisdictions provide. — Why is housing affordable for families with low incomes more likely to be inequitably concentrated in the United States? Universally available housing benefits in France and the United Kingdom make it easier for people with low incomes to afford living throughout metropolitan areas. Other government initiatives also help. In France, the Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain law requires that most urban municipalities, including previously exclusive suburbs, achieve 25 percent affordable housing by 2025 or face heavy fines.

- Metropolitan segregation and housing affordability remain major challenges for France and the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, our research shows they could teach policymakers in US metropolitan areas a couple of key lessons. — First, it is possible to substantially expand the availability of housing affordable to low- and moderate-income families. Too many American households simply cannot afford housing, which may be one reason why homelessness has been increasing. Our research suggests US federal, state, and local governments could consider dedicating more funding to both project- and tenant-based housing support to fill the gap. — Second, our comparisons show that metropolitan areas do not have to be so segregated by income. US states and the federal government could address the exclusivity of many suburbs by requiring the construction of more apartments, particularly affordable ones; prohibiting source of income discrimination that allows landlords to discriminate against voucher holders; and strengthening fair-share requirements that guarantee every community plays a role in providing living spaces for even the most vulnerable families.

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The following maps illustrate these conditions by comparing the Chicago and Paris urban areas. Though the central cities in the Chicago metropolitan area, such as the city of Chicago itself and Gary, have more than 10 percent of their units devoted to affordable housing, most of their suburbs have less than 5 percent. On the other hand, within-metropolitan variation is much less extreme in the Paris area, where subsidized units are available at high rates in the central city and in most of the suburban communities surrounding it.


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