Giving Compass' Take:

• Fast Company discusses the affordable housing crisis and how more government intervention (funding, policies) may be needed to fix the problem.

• Is more subsidized home construction the answer? What role could nonprofits play in expanding opportunities for low-income people, in addition to advocacy work?

• Read about how permanently affordable housing has gotten its own accelerator program.


For people renting homes in America, both luck and money are running out. Across the country, rents are rising much faster than incomes, and around 44% of renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing. That’s far too much, but it’s becoming commonplace because there simply aren’t enough affordable places for people to live.

A new report from the progressive policy research and advocacy organization Center for American Progress posits that is because there just aren’t enough homes, and those that once were affordable have shifted to the very high end amidst market pressures, leaving few places for low-income people to turn. Because this is a nationwide issue, CAP wants to see the federal government help deal with it — specifically by sponsoring a large-scale housing construction program to add an additional 1 million affordable units to the market over the span of five years.

The report, titled Homes for All: A Program Providing Rental Supply Where Working Families Need It Most, reads, in this political climate, as more of an exercise in magical thinking than a practical policy recommendation. Trump is extremely unlikely to authorize the $20 billion in annual funding this program would require to construct and maintain the new properties. Report author and CAP senior analyst Michela Zonta knows this. But the housing shortage in the U.S. will not disappear with a change of administration, and a report of this scope offers a sense of the magnitude of both funding and policy coordination that will be required to solve it.

Read the full article about the plan that shows how government should get back in the housing business by Eillie Anzilotti at fastcompany.com.