Giving Compass' Take:

• Chris Teale reports that leaders at the National Alliance to End Homelessness’ conference discussed how to effectively address the affordable housing crisis across the country.

• What cities have successfully addressed homelessness? What barriers prevent the spread of effective housing policies? 

• Learn about realistic affordable housing initiatives. 

With an increase in the national homeless population, and states and cities across the country struggling with the loss of affordable housing, leaders at the National Alliance to End Homelessness’ (NAEH) annual conference in Washington, DC said there is more work to be done.

The conference brought together more than 2,000 community, philanthropic and nonprofit leaders who look to end homelessness. NAEH President and CEO Nan Roman said in a speech to kick off the three-day event that the challenge is great, but governments at all levels need to invest more to help solve the problem.

Homelessness has grown particularly quickly on the West Coast, something that led elected officials in Seattle to try and impose a head tax on large businesses to help fund homeless programs. Those efforts were torpedoed after a coalition of business leaders and residents expressed opposition, although similar plans have also been considered in the San Francisco Bay Area as cities grapple with whether they should try and solve the problem through technology or policy changes.

That has been compounded by the loss of thousands of affordable housing units nationwide, a trend that has been going on for decades as wages fail to keep up with growth in housing costs and the cost of living, according to Roman. She said that while renter households went up by nearly 10 million from 2005 to 2017, the number of affordable units went down by 260,000 nationwide. And millions of new housing is being built, but not for those with low incomes.

Read the full article about affordable housing by Chris Teale at Smart Cities Dive.