Zoning codes established roughly a century ago were meant to protect residents from the impacts of industrial and commercial developments, but they were also used to enforce segregation. Those regulations have contributed in large part to the current housing shortage, and experts argue that it’s time for reforms. 

As the nation confronts a severe housing crisis, the Biden administration is calling on local governments to revisit outdated zoning policies that slow development.  A recent report from the Urban Land Institute highlights the zoning strategies cities are using to bolster housing development equitably and sustainably, including complete overhauls of single-family regulations and reductions of lot size minimums.  

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The housing crisis in New York State has locked out middle-class families and young people from homeownership, left hundreds of thousands burdened with high rents, and sent tens of thousands of working people into public shelters. Of 3.43 million renters in the state, more than half, roughly 1.7 million, spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Yet instead of strengthening Ms. Hochul’s housing plan, the State Senate and Assembly last week offered proposals that would gut it.

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As homelessness overwhelms downtown Phoenix, a small business wonders how long it can hang on. In recent years, the city has been hit by a housing crisis, a mental health crisis, and an opioid epidemic, resulting in one of the largest homeless encampments in the country, with over 1,100 people sleeping outdoors. Read about the experiences of Joe and Debbie Faillace, owners of Old Station Subs in Phoenix, Arizona. With a rising homeless population and a lack of affordable housing, the Faillaces have been struggling to keep their business running amidst the chaos and suffering caused by this humanitarian crisis.

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DC is 70% of the way towards meeting Mayor Muriel Bowser's goal of producing 36,000 new housing units by 2025. Approximately 25,000 units delivered between January 2019 and September 2022, per the latest data available on the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) dashboard. This represents 69% of the desired total. A report released in 2019 further specified affordable housing production goals for each of the city's ten planning areas. The graphic above details where those areas are with progress towards housing production.

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Los Angeles currently has about 42,000 homeless residents, with 28,000 unsheltered. In 2016 the people of Los Angeles overwhelmingly passed Proposition HHH, a ballot measure that raised $1.2 billion through a higher property tax to create 10,000 new apartments for the homeless. Six years later, neither the mandate the money has proved to be nearly enough. This is the paradox of housing development in Los Angeles and so many other cities. The politics of the affordable housing crisis are terrible. The politics of what you’d need to do to solve it are even worse.

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The pace of growth in U.S. home rents slowed in September to its lowest rate in 16 months — but the hugely elevated post-pandemic cost of renting a home is not likely to subside anytime soon. A recent sharp rise in inflation and interest rates has made homeownership less viable. Coupled with limited new supply, it means that even as rents become less affordable for the average American, they are unlikely to drop significantly.

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One big reason for the chronic housing shortage in America’s most prosperous regions is that state governments have ceded control to local governments that behave like private clubs. In California, the heartland of the housing crisis, the state is starting to take power back. The state’s political leaders are clearing the way for housing construction by restricting local interference, prioritizing the needs of all Californians — and those who might like to be.

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More than 8 million people were behind on their rent at the end of August, and nearly half of those residents say they are somewhat or very likely to be forced out of their homes in the next two months, according to new Census Bureau figures reported by Yahoo News.

At the same time, evictions are on the rise as assistance doled out by the federal government during the pandemic begins to dry up. Data from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University found evictions were 52% higher than average in Tampa, 90% above average in Houston and 94% above average in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

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Throughout Fairfield County, Conn., local residents and elected officials are seeking to block large housing projects that include units affordable to low- and moderate-income households, warning that the increased density could change the character of their towns. The 32-year-old law that enables such projects has always generated some pushback, but the opposition has grown more fierce as the number of proposals has increased in recent years.

The fervent campaigns against housing applications reflect a battle that has engulfed the state, town by town. Last week, a group led by the Open Communities Alliance announced that it would file a civil rights lawsuit against the town of Woodbridge, saying that the town’s zoning regulations, which sharply restrict multifamily housing, violated the state Fair Housing Act, state zoning laws and the state Constitution.

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Many California towns, particularly ones with rich people, have fought higher-density housing plans in recent years, a trend that has become known as NIMBYism for “not in my backyard.” But Atherton’s situation stands out because of the extreme wealth of its denizens — the average home sale in 2020 was $7.9 million — and because tech leaders who live there have championed housing causes.

The companies that made Atherton’s residents rich have donated huge sums to nonprofits to offset their impact on the local economy, including driving housing costs up. Some of the letter writers have even sat on the boards of charities aimed at addressing the region’s poverty and housing problems.

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There’s long been a popular narrative about land use: New development, particularly of market-rate housing, gives rise to gentrification. That translates to lower-income residents, particularly those of color, getting squeezed out. Sound familiar?

It’s “explicitly or implicitly at the core of almost any discussion about housing in the D.C. region,” said Casey Anderson, chair of the Montgomery County Planning Board. The specter of displacement is a formidable fear for some and harrowing reality for others. But it’s also too monolithic an account.

The study does highlight a factor that’s hard to ignore: the positive effect of more housing production in the D.C. region.

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San Francisco's homegrown hostility to new development has made it the epicenter of California's housing crisis. It will now become a testing ground for a newly empowered state government's ability to force liberalizing reforms on a city that repeatedly refuses to build.

On Tuesday, the state's Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) announced that it would be launching an unprecedented review of San Francisco's housing policies and practices "aimed at identifying and removing barriers to approval and construction of new housing there."

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Santa Fe is home to New Mexico’s first net-zero energy multi-family unit project.

The recently opened Siler Yard caters to the members of the art and creative community who make under 60-percent of the Area Mean Income.

The 65-unit, $17.4 million project was made possible through a $10.4 million competitive Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and a $5.2 million, 40-year, Section 221(d)(4) mortgage — both U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development programs for affordable housing.

The project also received $600,000 in permit and fee waivers from the city of Santa Fe, which also contributed $400,000 in infrastructure funding and the 4.3 acres of land it was built on.

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The U.S. needs 4.3 million new apartments over the next 13 years just to meet projected demand, a total that includes the current shortfall of 600,000 units, according to a new report published by the National Multifamily Housing Council and the National Apartment Association.

The shortfall is largely a legacy of the late 2000s financial crisis and deep recession, when U.S. development ground almost to a halt, the report said.

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The five states in the U.S. with the highest rates of homelessness are New York, Hawaii, California, Oregon and Washington. Some of the bluest states in the country, not one red state on that list.

And at the core of that failure is the failure to build enough homes, full stop. Housing is fundamental. When you fail to provide it, that failure reverberates throughout society, it lays waste to all your other carefully laid policy plans and ideals. Few understand the ins and outs of America’s housing system or systems like Jenny Schuetz.

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By 2026, all new buildings and substantial renovations in D.C. will have to be net-zero construction, meaning they produce as much energy as they consume, under legislation passed unanimously by the D.C. Council Tuesday. The legislation, which also bans most natural gas use in new buildings, now heads to Mayor Muriel Bowser.

The net-zero building codes will cover all commercial buildings, condo and apartment buildings, as well as single family homes taller than three stories.

The bill also requires audits every three years, starting in 2029, to report what percentage of new buildings are complying with the net-zero requirements.

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The state of the nationwide housing crisis shifted significantly in the mid 2000’s, moving from primarily a coastal issue to one dispersed throughout the U.S., according to a new report. The report from Up For Growth shows the U.S. fell short of meeting housing needs across the country by more than three million homes in 2019 – up from 1.6 million in 2012. During this seven-year period, forty-seven states and the nation’s capital saw an increase in underproduction, and another six states moved into the underproduction category.

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San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Washington have long failed to build enough housing to keep up with everyone trying to live there. And for nearly as long, other parts of the country have mostly been able to shrug off the housing shortage as a condition particular to big coastal cities.

But in the years leading up to the pandemic, that condition advanced around the country. What once seemed a blue-state coastal problem has increasingly become a national one, with consequences for the quality of life of American families, the health of the national economy and the politics of housing construction.

“It’s like the cancer was limited to certain parts of our economic body,” said Sam Khater, the chief economist at Freddie Mac. “And now it’s spreading.”

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Over the past few decades, developers grew accustomed to nothing but staunch opposition to dense affordable housing project proposals. Within the past 10 years, though, in some areas such as California, Chicago, Seattle, and Portland, Ore., a new YIMBY (Yes, In My Backyard) movement has sprung up to support affordable housing development. In fact, some of these advocates, often wearing t-shirts and buttons inscribed with the YIMBY slogan, show up at public hearings and city council meetings to express their view.

Some of those embracing YIMBYism lobby state legislatures to enact pro-housing initiatives. With so many people struggling to find a home or pay rent, it is perhaps no surprise that this grassroots movement has emerged.

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Rising housing costs, combined with persistent inflation for basic necessities such as gas and food, have left more Americans newly homeless and millions more fearing they’ll soon lose their homes. Shelters across the country are reporting a sudden increase in numbers of people looking for help as they struggle to cover basics. Inflation has reached 40-year highs just as many vulnerable families are readjusting to life without a boost from government stimulus or protections to keep them from being evicted.

A rise in homelessness is the latest example of a recovery further separating the haves from the have nots. Soaring house prices have allowed existing homeowners to see their wealth balloon. Meanwhile, for a growing number of Americans, simply finding a place to spend the night is becoming more expensive and out of reach.

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