Why does affordable housing matter

There is not a single parish or county in America that has enough housing to meet the need that families can afford with a full-time minimum-wage salary. Preserving and expanding the supply of affordable housing is critical to ensuring that communities will have the capacity to respond to environmental challenges such as the climate crisis. When affordable housing is built to achieve higher population density and is near mass transit; the environmental and climate benefits significantly increase through reduced vehicle use, lower carbon emissions and improved air quality.

Strategies such as brownfields and infill development can remediate environmentally hazardous places improving environmental health while creating more walkable communities with access to affordable housing. NRDC again partnered with the National Housing Trust through EEFA advocates for the protection of federal financing and programs that preserve and build affordable housing while ensuring that they have access to modern clean energy services through efficiency retrofits.

We look forward to the opportunity to leverage our collective strength for the benefit of low-income renters and families across the nation. The crisis of affordable housing is inexorably linked to the plight of climate change. By forging ahead together, we can create the political will to implement solutions that address the full scale of the threats faced by families who are most in need.

Press State Campaigns Resources Contact. Ideally, those investments should be made when a neighborhood is just starting to experience gentrification. Finally, housing provides a critical foundation for individual health , well-being and educational success.

Local housing policies are critical in creating diverse and inclusive cities, towns, and counties but they can also serve as powerful tools for exclusion. History offers many cautionary examples. Consider the implementation of the federal public housing A federal program dedicated to providing decent and safe rental housing for low-income families, older adults, and persons with disabilities.

There are around 1. Programs differ in types and sizes. Many jurisdictions, especially those in suburban areas, refused to participate in the federal public housing program, and those that did participate often chose to build developments in central city neighborhoods that were largely occupied by families of color with low incomes, deepening poverty concentration and racial segregation.

In many cities, public housing authorities also allowed developments themselves to be segregated by race , with those in white areas open to white residents and those in minority areas open to Black residents. Many jurisdictions have meanwhile used exclusionary zoning to block any type of affordable housing, and multifamily rental housing more generally, from their borders. While the motivations for such land use regulations may not be explicitly racist or classist, they have served to harden racial and economic segregation.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood rating systems used in federal government loan guarantee programs reinforced local color lines by starving neighborhoods occupied by residents of color of much-needed credit by officially declaring them risky places to lend. Importantly, racial segregation has not resulted in separate but equal neighborhoods. On average, Black and Latinx households continue to live in neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty, lower-performing schools and more violent crime than their white and Asian counterparts.

These differences in turn shape the ability of children to climb the economic ladder. There is strong evidence that segregation heightens racial disparities in educational and economic outcomes. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, history matters. The color lines drawn by these previous policies are not easily erased.

Having been evicted, owing money, or having a criminal history can all be barriers to qualifying for affordable housing. But none of these things necessarily mean that an application will be denied—many organizations, including CommonBond, make determinations based on individual circumstances, and are willing to hear more about how circumstances have affected a person's ability to remain stable.

Due to the massive shortage in affordable rental units, wait lists are to be expected. But keep in mind that individuals may not learn if they're eligible until reaching the top of a wait list—landlords sometimes have different screening criteria e.

Housing and other infrastructure investments can prevent further harm and rebuild the foundation for broader social and economic success. Enter the terms you wish to search for. November 01, Equitable Places. Katherine Fallon. October 27, October 21, Thursday.