The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported by funding under an award with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The substance and findings of the work are dedicated to the public. The author and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of HUD.
(left to right) Gustavo Velasquez of Urban Institute, Ernst Valery of SAA | EVI and Nicky Goren of Meyer Foundation discuss the causes and consequences of redlining at HAND’s Annual Meeting & Housing Expo.
On the heels of HAND’s Annual Meeting & Housing Expo, the team under the How Housing Matters Initiative at Urban Institute was inspired to author a piece reflecting on some of the policy changes that would be needed to address issues of housing discrimination and equity. An excerpt from the piece titled, “Rethink Housing and Community Development to Advance Racial Equity and Inclusion” is as follows:
In the US, descriptions of housing affordability challenges and differences in wealth, health, and education need to include a racial equity lens, or the picture is incomplete. Legally authorized and mandated housing discrimination through federal lending and investment policies laid the cornerstone of complex socio-spatial issues that historically segregated communities continue to face. Many of the inequities within and between neighborhoods, particularly in large metropolitan areas, trace their roots to redlining.
Such discriminatory lending practices have left a legacy of disinvestment predominately in black and brown communities. Although the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 sought to undo forced inequalities within neighborhoods by creating strong incentives for positive investment activity, the ramifications of housing segregation and economic exclusion will take additional policy attention to address…
…Meaningful and inclusive community revitalization can break down some of the barriers instituted through disinvestment and discrimination. This can be done through equitable development, but it requires intentional engagement and community input. Community development corporations (CDCs) and community land trusts (CLTs) have facilitated this engagement. While CDCs and CLTs usually have residents on their boards, CDC leadership often does not represent those they serve, which can leave residents feeling disengaged.
At the annual meeting of HAND, a membership organization for housing providers in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC, Ernst Valery, founder and president of EVI Equity, addressed this challenge. He said, “We think so much about renovating the building, we need to also renovate the people.” EVI purchased Essex Village, an apartment complex in Henrico County, Virginia, that was far from providing its residents with a platform for success in life; according to Valery, it has been deemed the county’s worst apartment complex. EVI and the property manager CAPREIT quickly formed a tenants’ association to ensure that Essex Village residents were involved early in the planning process. Residents expressed excitement that the new owners wanted to hear their voices and to collaborate on creating lasting change in the housing development. When tenants are offered a seat at the table, they are eager to get involved, but developers need to provide the space to be heard.
You can read the article in full here.
Photo courtesy of Scott Lewis
By Lisa A. Sturtevant, PhD
In the aftermath of the recession and housing market downturn, residential construction activity has been increasingly fairly steadily. However, the pace of new housing construction remains below long-term levels and the types and prices/rents of new housing being produced does not sufficiently meet demand. As demand for home ownership increases, the population of younger renters grows more slowly, and the number of lower-wage workers expands in the region, there is a great need for lower-priced home ownership opportunities and apartments and other rental homes with lower rents.
Some key findings from the residential permit data released from the U.S. Census Bureau:
Residential construction activities to grow steadily but still remains below long term levels regionwide. Over January through November of last year, there were about 22,000 permits issued for the construction of new residential housing units. The 2016 residential permitting activity included 4,321 building permits in the District of Columbia, 5,806 building permits in Suburban Maryland, and 11,739 building permits in Northern Virginia. Residential permitting activity in the region has been increasing steadily since 2009, but remains below the 2000-2016 annual average (~25,000), suggesting that new home construction has not been sufficient to meet the demands associated with population growth.
[Figure 1]
One-fifth of the residential construction activity in the region was in the District of Columbia in 2016. While residential construction activity has increased throughout the region, the District of Columbia still accounts for one-fifth of new permits. About a quarter of the permits were for housing in Suburban Maryland and a little over half were in Northern Virginia. By contrast, before the recession, only about five percent of permits for new residential units in the Washington DC region were in the District of Columbia. The District’s share of new permits has slipped slightly, to 20 percent in 2016 from 23 percent in 2015.
[Figure 2]
Multi-family construction remains strong though new single-family construction is on the rise. In 2016, 44 percent of permits for new residential construction in the Washington DC region were for multi-family units, including nearly all (93 percent) of the permits in DC, 35 percent in Northern Virginia and 28 percent in Suburban Maryland. Historically, over the past 16 years, about 38 percent of permits in the region were for multi-family units so the current share remains higher than average. However, over the past two years, the share of multi-family units has declined somewhat, generally because of a slight decline in the share of permits issued in DC.
[Figure 3]
Home prices and rents in the Washington DC region continue to climb. Recent data from MRIS have shown that home prices in the metropolitan area have now matched the record high set during the housing market boom. The median sales price in December 2016 was $410,100, slightly higher than the previous record high price of $408,000 in 2014. As typical, there is wide variation in home prices throughout the region that reflects location as well as home types. For example, in the District of Columbia, the median sales price was $550,000. In Fairfax County the median home price was $470,000 and in Prince George’s County was $265,000.
Rents have also been on the rise, and new multi-family construction has skewed substantially towards luxury, higher-rent apartments. Even as concessions at new apartment buildings have increased, rents in buildings, particularly in DC and in the closer-in suburbs, are often only affordable to very high-income renters. According the 2015 American Community Survey data, the median rent in DC was $1,417 in 2015; however, the median rent for units built in 2014 and 2015 was $2,334. A household would need an income of more than $93,000 in order to afford the median rent in a new apartment building in the city.
Homelessness remains an intractable problem in the District of Columbia. Even as new residential construction increases, there remains insufficient housing affordable to all residents in the region. A recent survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that Washington DC has the highest rate of homelessness among the nation’s 32 largest cities. The ability for the region to expand the housing supply will depend not only on land use and zoning changes that encourage more housing, but also policies that promote the development of housing for our region’s most vulnerable residents.
By Lisa A. Sturtevant, PhD
Nearly 400,000 renter households in the Washington DC region—about half of all renters—are cost burdened, spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs. For many individuals and families paying high housing costs can mean there is too little for other essentials, such as food and health care. In the Washington DC area, more than 12,000 homeless individuals were identified in this year’s point-in-time homelessness count, though we know the number of people without stable housing is much higher. Despite the efforts of countless housing advocates, non-profits, and local governments, the housing affordability challenges in the DC region continue to grow. What can local jurisdictions do to stem the rising affordability challenges?
Housing is a growing concern in the region. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2000, about 220,000 renter households in the Washington DC metropolitan area were cost burdened. In 2015, that number had grown to about 380,000, an increase of 160,000 households. In 2000, 33.2 percent of renters were cost burdened. In 2015, that share was 48.5 percent. The overall number of cost burdened renters has increased in jurisdictions throughout the region. For example, there were about 25,600 more cost burdened renters in DC in 2015 than there were in 2000. In Montgomery County, the number of cost burden renters grew by more than 31,000 over the 15-year period between 2000 and 2015. Fairfax County added 24,200 new cost burdened renter households over the same period.
These increases are not because local jurisdictions have ignored the problem. Just in the last few years, DC has dedicated $100 million to its Housing Production Trust Fund. Montgomery County has increased efforts to use public land for affordable housing. The City of Alexandria continues to look for opportunities to partner with developers to expand mixed-income housing. Fairfax County has made housing affordability a key component of its Strategic Plan to Facilitate Economic Success. Arlington County is working to adopt at Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) process to more efficiently and effectively allocate local housing resources.
But, as the cost burden numbers show, it hasn’t been enough. And things probably are not going to get easer in 2017. Even without specific affordable housing proposals, the new Presidential administration could weaken key Federal programs that local jurisdictions have come to count on for the production and preservation of housing affordable to lower-income individuals and families.
Tax reform. No specific proposals have been discussed by the incoming Trump administration related to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. It seems very unlikely that the credit itself will be eliminated since there is generally broad bipartisan support for the program. However, there has been a lot of talk about the likelihood of tax reform under the new Trump administration. Some affordable housing finance experts have suggested that there could be “substantial” indirect effects of proposed tax reforms on the LIHTC, making the tax credit less valuable to investors. Reduced capacity of the LIHTC could mean a growing need for local resources to fill financing gaps and to make projects feasible.
Cuts in Nondefense Spending. President-elect Trump has indicated that he intends to cut nondefense spending, at one time saying he wanted cuts of one percent every year. This would mean cuts to key HUD programs that serve some of the lowest-income and most vulnerable individuals and families in our communities—programs like the Housing Choice Voucher Program and CDBG and HOME. Historically a target of cuts, these programs could be at significant risk under a President who has indicated little interest in supporting HUD programs. Even now, federal housing programs currently serve only about a quarter of eligible households. Reductions in federal funding would means that local jurisdictions will lose critical resources to support a wide range of housing and community development programs and the losses would disproportionately impact the lowest-income and potentially the most vulnerable households.
Rising housing challenges and declining federal resources are not new phenomena; local jurisdictions have been taking on increasingly active roles in housing policies and funding for decades. However, in 2017, the role for local action on housing will be even more critical in our region. What can local jurisdictions to do differently to move the needle?
Communication is key:
Make the case. Throughout our communities we need to continue to make the case for why housing is important. And there is not just one argument. Whether it’s because increasing housing supply is good for the local economy. Or that education and health outcomes are better for families with access to safe and affordable housing. Or that poor children who live in higher-opportunity neighborhoods go on to make more money—any pay more taxes—than those left behind.
Document the need. At the local level, it is important not only to quantify housing needs in the community, but also to relate those numbers to actual people. Combining hard data with descriptions of hypothetical—or real—individuals and families is important for demonstrating the need.
Explain how housing finance works. Make sure that the community understands why government is necessary when it comes to building housing affordable to lower-income households. Tools like the Urban Institute’s affordable housing simulator can help show in black and white that gap that often needs to be filled by public resources.
Communication can be hard but other important steps are even harder:
Prioritize housing. Public resources are limited and local jurisdictions have competing demands on those resources. In general, however, local communities have not been explicit about prioritizing housing, and then about prioritizing particular goals within housing programs and policies. Prioritization—linked to specified and dedicated funding sources—seems especially important to having an impact.
Innovate on the funding side. To meet housing needs when federal resources are on the decline, it is going to be necessary to identify new sources of funding. Local jurisdictions need to commit to looking for innovative funding sources and partners.
Photo courtesy of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
By Lisa A. Sturtevant, PhD
Fair housing never emerged as an issue in the presidential election; however, the new President and his HUD secretary and Attorney General will have responsibility for overseeing the enforcement of new fair housing laws, including the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule and the disparate impact court decision. There is uncertainty about what a Trump Presidency will mean for housing nationally, but given his selection of Ben Carson as HUD Secretary, it seems more important than ever to re-commit to working regionally to support the goals of fair housing and access to opportunity here in the Washington, DC metro area.
It has been over a year since the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development published the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule that established a new housing needs assessment process (replacing the analysis of impediments) with the Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH). The AFFH rule lays out a new procedure for local jurisdictions to assess areas of concentrated poverty, to identify disparities in access to good schools, transit and other amenities, and to evaluate unmet housing needs among certain subpopulations, including racial and ethnic minorities and persons with disabilities. In addition, for the first time HUD is providing a trove of local data to help localities identify patterns of demographic change. The goal of the AFFH rule is to bring greater guidance to localities for “affirmatively furthering fair housing” as mandated in the Housing Act of 1968.
Despite some of the rhetoric, the new regulations reflect only an incremental change to HUD’s approach to enforcing fair housing and is designed to encourage a more intentional assessment of whether the goals of the Fair Housing Act are being met. However, the AFFH rule has been castigated as a vast overreach by the Federal government into local autonomy, and the change in leadership at the Federal level will likely give broader voice to those claims.
During the campaign, President-elect Trump said he wanted to dismantle the AFFH rule. Donald Trump’s company has been sued by the Justice Department for violating fair housing laws in New York. In the 1970s, Trump’s father was arrested in Prince George’s County while allowing an apartment complex he owned fall into disrepair and for subjecting African American tenants to deplorable housing conditions. It’s not likely that a President Trump will take the lead on promoting fair housing from the White House. Trump’s pick for HUD Secretary, Ben Carson, has given every indication that he will not be a champion for fair housing at the Federal level either. He has called the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule a “mandated social-engineering scheme” and a policy indicative of a “communist” country.
The Region Should Be a Leader in Promoting its Own Fair Housing Goals
With likely backpedaling on AFFH at the Federal level, the Washington DC metropolitan area should remain committed to advancing fair housing in the region. Now, more than ever, local elected officials need to be leaders for promoting access and opportunity for all members of our community.
Regional discussions about AFFH are already underway. Last spring, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments partnered with Enterprise Community Partners and the National Housing Conference to host a full-day training and information sharing session around the AFFH rule. The primary objective of the convening was to discuss the data component of the assessment tool but the conversation shed light on the entire AFH process. At the meeting, we had representatives from HUD, as well as from the Baltimore area, which recently completed a regional housing plan.
This meeting led to further discussions among local Housing Directors at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG), but momentum around AFFH slowed over the summer. Given the road ahead, now seems like a good time to re-energize regional partners around fair housing. The lack of Federal leadership is one important reason for mobilization. But there is increasing evidence that regions that are more racially and economically integrated have stronger, more resilient local economies.
There are several things we can do now which would not only help support housing options and integration throughout the region but could also allow us to act proactively—to do something!—in the wake of the unprecedented Presidential election:
Produce data on housing needs and opportunities more efficiently. We learned in our March AFFH meeting that HUD is providing a tremendous amount of data to localities, but jurisdictions are advised by the new rule to make use of locally-generated data. Rather than each jurisdiction analyzing its own data, MWCOG should facilitate a regional data analysis exercise that can help with local housing plans but also help jurisdictions connect regionally.
Consider a regional assessment of fair housing. HUD recommends, though does not really incentivize, a regional approach to assessing housing needs and developing strategies. While each local jurisdiction in the Washington DC area will still develop its own financial, land use and other tools to meet local housing needs, there may be some degree of regional assessment that could be undertaken. Local elected officials, along with housing and planning directors, should become better informed about what it would take to do a regional assessment of fair housing, and whether some type of regional approach is possible.
Share best practices. At the very least, local jurisdictions in the Washington DC region need to do a better job at sharing best practices for expanding housing options. In the last few years, many jurisdictions in the region have conducted housing studies that have led to the development of policy recommendations. The policies and plans should be shared across jurisdictions through MWCOG or another regional body so that jurisdictions can learn from each other and possibly help promote consistency in policies and regulations throughout the region.
Focus on community engagement. There is no silver bullet that we have yet to discover that will solve our region’s housing challenges. Jurisdictions in the Washington DC region are among the most innovative communities in the country in terms of affordable housing tools. We know what needs to be done. The major obstacle that remains is building political will and responding to community opposition to housing, particularly multi-family housing and housing affordable to low-income individuals and families. We should work together to solve the NIMBY (not in my backyard) issue by figuring out how to respond to concerns about density, schools, and parking; how to provide elected officials with education and information they can use at public meetings; and how to have conversations that promote inclusion and tolerance.
On that last point, I think there would be a lot of people in our region who would want to be part of that conversation right now.
Photo courtesy of Kate Gardiner
By Lisa Sturtevant, PhD
According to recent American Community Survey (ACS) data, more than one in five households in the District of Columbia is severely cost burdened, including 27 percent of renters and 12 percent of home owners. When individuals and families pay a disproportionately high share of their income on housing—50 percent or more—they often face challenges paying for other necessities, including food, health care, child care and transportation. In DC, about 60,000 households face this challenge. However, the rates of severe cost burden vary substantially for different segments of the population. Demographic characteristics like age and immigration status matter, but household income is the primary determinant of whether a household is severely cost burdened. While not surprising, this suggests opportunities for the housing industry and workforce development organizations to work together to expand housing options by both increasing the housing supply and growing incomes of residents of DC and the rest of the region.
Some populations in the District are more likely than others to face affordability challenges. The rate of severely cost burdened households is higher among renters (27.4 percent) than for the overall population. While seniors age 65 or older are just about as likely as the overall population in DC to be severely cost burdened, the challenges are greater for the more vulnerable 85+ senior population (24.8 percent are severely cost burdened) and people with disabilities (33.6 percent are severely cost burdened). Single-parent families and immigrant households are also disproportionately cost burdened, with rates of severe cost burden of 32.2 percent and 25.3 percent, respectively.
But the single biggest factor that is associated with cost burden is income. Most low-income families and individuals find it difficult to find affordable housing in the District, including households with full-time workers. An individual working a full-time job at the city’s minimum wage (currently $11.50 per hour) would earn about $24,000 a year. Nearly 70 percent of households with incomes at or below this full-time minimum wage worker salary are severely cost burdened, paying half or more of that income every month towards housing costs. This group of lower-income households includes non-working households, as well, but this particular statistic is emblematic of the struggles of low-wage working households in the city and, indeed, throughout the region.
Look what happens when you examine the rates of severe cost burden only for households with incomes above the city’s minimum wage. The rates of severe cost burden are significantly lower for all groups with a household income higher than what a full-time minimum wage worker would earn in a year. About nine percent of these higher-income older seniors (age 85+) and immigrants are severely cost burdened. Among single-parents and immigrants, about 11 percent are severely cost burdened if they earn income greater than the full-time city minimum wage. These shares are dramatically lower than for the same groups that earn lower incomes.
The District of Columbia is among a growing number of states and localities that has instituted a minimum wage that is higher than the federal minimum and has planned increases. By 2020, the minimum wage in DC is set to rise to $15 per hour. A full-time, year-round worker at this wage would earn $31,200 annually. In Maryland, the statewide minimum wage increased from $8.25 to $8.75 per hour in October but in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, the local minimum wage is $10.75 per hour. In Virginia, the minimum wage remains at the Federal level of $7.25 per hour.
Advocating for a higher minimum wage—or a living wage—in the region’s jurisdictions would help put more money in the pockets of people in lower-skill, lower-wage jobs. With more money, it could be easier for these individuals and families to find housing they can afford. However, it is possible—though by no means conclusive—that an increase in a local minimum wage could actually lead to increases in rents at the lower level. A coordinated effort of increasing wages AND expanding housing supply is the best way to ensure wage gains translate into access to more affordable housing in the city and in the wider Washington DC region. To that end, the housing industry and workforce development community should have a shared goal of working together to help alleviate the challenge for the many households living with incomes that are too low and housing costs that are too high.
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As mentioned above, providing affordable housing has benefits...January 31, 2017 - 2:43 am by Rick Rybeck
Well, it's there... quality research, good prose and passion......November 23, 2016 - 11:06 am by Van Driessen
Todd brings the right kind of business and finance experience...May 18, 2016 - 10:05 am by Mike
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