Affordable housing advocacy

May is recognized as Affordable Housing Month, a time to raise awareness about the importance of access to safe, decent, and affordable housing for all individuals and families. The month highlights the challenges faced by those struggling to find housing within their financial reach while celebrating efforts and initiatives to address the housing crisis. Communities, organizations, and advocates come together in May to foster conversations around policies, solutions, and resources that can ensure everyone has a place to call home.

Today, too many hard-working Americans cannot rent or buy homes due to increasing housing costs. These rising costs are driven by a lack of supply created by barriers to development that make it increasingly challenging to rent or buy, particularly at a price affordable to low-income and middle-class families. The total share of cost-burdened households (those paying more than 30% of their income on housing) increased steadily from 28% in 1985 to 37% in 2021, while other households have been priced out of communities altogether in their search for affordable housing. This is not sustainable, and policies must be enacted to encourage new housing production and preservation. 

IREM has been advocating for Congress to pass the following measures, which would go a long way to increasing the nation’s housing supply and have a positive impact on the housing affordability crisis.

Choice in Affordable Housing Act

IREM members own and manage more than 60% of all federally assisted housing and public housing units in the U.S. Federally assisted housing offers homes to people who otherwise would have challenges obtaining safe and decent housing.

The Act would provide $500 million to create a Housing Partnership Fund. The funds would be distributed for:

• Public housing authorities (PHAs) to offer a signing bonus to a landlord with a unit in an area with less than 20% poverty
• PHAs to provide security deposit assistance so tenants can better afford to meet required deposits and landlords are assured greater protection against damages
• The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide a bonus to PHAs that retain a dedicated landlord liaison on staff
• Other uses, as determined by the PHA and approved by the Secretary, to recruit and retain landlords

The Act is also intended to:

• Use neighborhood-specific data to set rents fairly. The bill would require HUD to expand its 2016 rule requiring the use of Small Area Fair Market Rents to calculate fair rents in certain metro areas.
• Reduce inspection delays. Units in buildings financed by other federal housing programs would meet the voucher inspection if the unit has been inspected in the past year. New landlords could also request a pre-inspection from a PHA that would be good for 60 days before selecting a voucher-holding tenant.
• Refocus HUD’s evaluation of housing agencies. The bill would encourage HUD to reform its annual evaluation of PHAs to promote increased diversity of neighborhoods where vouchers are used. The bill also requires HUD to report to Congress annually on the effects of the bill.

Revitalizing Downtowns and Main Streets Act 

Given the nation’s shortage of affordable rental housing, many cities are considering repurposing unused and underutilized commercial real estate structures, such as offices, hotels, and retail spaces, into housing. Such repurposing would not only help address the nation’s housing supply challenge but also create jobs and boost local property tax revenues.  

The Act would provide a federal tax credit between 20% and 35% of eligible costs to convert older, underutilized office and other commercial buildings into residential housing. The high costs of many conversions have made it too expensive to turn vacant commercial spaces into new housing. 

It would also require that no less than 20% of residential units created by the credit are reserved for individuals whose income is at or below 80% of the median income for a minimum of 30 years (with an option for states to require a longer affordability period). For difficult-to-develop and qualified low-income areas, affordability would be calculated at or below 60% of the area’s median income, and all of these units would be rent-restricted to people earning 30% or less of that income.

The Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) Act 

The YIMBY Act encourages localities to eliminate discriminatory land use policies and remove barriers that prevent needed housing from being built nationwide. It would achieve these goals by requiring Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) recipients to report periodically on the extent to which they are removing discriminatory land use policies and implementing inclusive and affordable housing policies detailed by the bill. The YIMBY Act increases transparency in land use, zoning, and housing decisions, sheds light on exclusionary polices, and encourages localities to eliminate barriers to much-needed housing.

• The YIMBY Act increases transparency and encourages thoughtful and inclusive development practices by requiring localities to fully examine and disclose their housing policy decisions.
• The bill provides localities with a framework for smart policymaking and regulatory practices, thus promoting more inclusive development principles.
• The YIMBY Act is an important first step in decreasing the barriers to smart, inclusive growth and reducing the negative and cumulative impact of exclusionary housing policies. It is also a way to demonstrate that the federal government takes seriously the challenges exclusionary zoning creates.

Revitalizing Opportunity Zones to incentivize rehabilitation of housing units

While we expect the Opportunity Zones program to spur the production of new multifamily housing, to fully maximize the potential of Opportunity Zones, Congress should: 

• Enable states to recertify and/or redesignate Opportunity Zones to account for current economic realities and changes since zones were originally designated.
• Establish new investment deadlines so taxpayers are incentivized to receive longer deferral periods and the potential for a 10% or 15% basis increase with respect to reinvested capital gains.

The program could also be improved to incentivize rehabilitating existing multifamily units. Statutory modifications could be made to reduce the basis increase necessary to qualify a multifamily rehabilitation project for Opportunity Zone purposes.  

Affordable housing is not just a necessity but a fundamental right that supports the well-being and stability of individuals and communities. Addressing the challenges of housing affordability requires continued collaboration, innovative solutions, and policy reforms that prioritize equitable access for all. As we move forward, it’s essential to keep advocating for systemic changes that ensure everyone, regardless of income or background, has access to safe, affordable, and secure housing. By working together, we can create a future where affordable housing is accessible to all.