Maria Cruz and Alma Aquino are longtime neighbors in a seven-unit rental building in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood. Over the years, their children have walked to school and played together. Soon, these families and the building’s other tenants may be evicted. The building’s new owner had planned to convert rental units to condominiums, but defaulted on bank loans and fled the country, leaving the property to foreclosure. “Yes, every day we are scared,” Cruz says. “We’re afraid we will come home and find our children and everything on the street.” Aquino agrees. “It’s really hard to find another place,” she says. “The school is across the street. There’s transportation close to the house too.”
Safe, stable, environmentally healthy housing is a necessity for the well-being of families. Many of us sacrifice a great deal in exchange for the American dream of a decent home. We may forego healthcare, child care, clothing or food to pay the rent or mortgage. We work multiple jobs, leaving little time for parenting or other care-giving responsibilities. Those of us forced to move – and move frequently – in search of work and affordable housing transfer our children from one school to another, which can hurt their social adjustment and academic achievement.
Often, to find affordable housing, we must move farther from our jobs or from good employment opportunities, increasing commuting time, transportation costs and environmental pollution. Some of us crowd in with relations or friends. Some of us are forced into substandard housing that presents health hazards for our children, including lead poisoning and infestations that cause asthma. Compounding our struggle is the disappearance of public housing. Those of us who fall into homelessness see the losses spiral quickly: our jobs, our access to community resources and, even, our children.
The lending and foreclosure crisis has demonstrated that foreclosures hurt not only those of us who lose our homes but also our communities as a whole, through lowered property tax revenues, a reduction in home construction jobs and the ripple effect of job and home loss on our community businesses. It also points to the need for sustainable development, affordable housing, and homeownership programs and policies that contribute to the well-being of our neighborhoods and communities.
We all want to feel safe and secure in our homes, to know that we will not be displaced or priced out by development, rising mortgage payments, or gentrification. We call for the renovation of existing public housing, replacement of destroyed public housing, and the construction of safe affordable housing so that we can afford to rent or to purchase a first home.
Local housing trust funds, when partnered with similar state entities, can focus our city or county resources on affordable housing objectives such as revitalization of our neighborhoods, the creation of mixed-income housing and the establishment of community land trusts. Housing trust funds bring a layer of needed funding and frequently generate support in our communities for critical housing needs and for expanding the capacity of local community development corporations.
Community land trusts acquire vacant land and develop housing on it or acquire land with existing buildings. The land is held permanently by the trust so that it will always benefit the community, while the housing on it can be owned by those of us who use it. We urge that properties developed with public resources be included in a local community land trust to ensure that the units remain affordable to low- and moderate-income residents in perpetuity.
The loss of manufacturing and other industries, along with rapid suburban growth, has devastated many of our older cities, particularly those in the Northeast and Rust Belt. As housing neglect and abandonment reaches a tipping point, our communities become blighted, creating serious health and safety hazards for those of us who remain. We call on local governments to develop comprehensive policies to quickly secure and reclaim vacant and abandoned properties. We urge that funding be made available to revitalize the areas with affordable housing or to convert them to open space.
Federal regulations restrict exposure to lead-based paints and asbestos and most local codes prohibit health hazards such as peeling paint, leaks, mold and pest infestation. But these codes are erratically enforced. As a result, the health and well-being of our families, and especially our children, can be at risk. To ensure compliance with housing codes, we urge localities to streamline enforcement and adopt strict penalties, including fines, for violations. We also urge the establishment of local funds to eliminate housing-related hazards that threaten our health and safety.
Early and immediate counseling and intervention can help our families avoid foreclosures, in particular where we have been victimized by predatory lending practices. Given immediate funding to expand their counseling services, experienced community-based organizations could help turn the foreclosure crisis around and keep families in their homes.
Affordable-housing developers must compete (with other developers) for land to construct new affordable units. We urge localities to adopt housing policies that ensure affordable housing is integrated throughout our communities. We support zoning laws that require developers to make a portion of housing units in new residential developments affordable to low- and moderate-income households. Linking the production of affordable housing to private market development will increase the supply of affordable housing and promote equitable distribution throughout our cities and counties.
We urge immediate expansion of state-funded programs to create and preserve housing for our low- and moderate-income families. We advocate a structure that will encourage local investment in affordable housing.
We know that financing an affordable housing project is a major challenge: In addition to the land purchase and construction expenses, developers must determine whether the project’s income will support its operating expenses over the life of the building, often 30 to 40 years.
States can promote the development of affordable housing for our low- and moderate-income families by (1) providing long-term project-based subsidies to cover operating costs over the life of the project, and (2) providing rental subsidies to us, as tenants, to cover the gap between what we can afford to pay and the rent that must be collected to cover the costs of operating the development.
Just as families can accomplish more when they work together to create a common vision for their community, cities and regions work best when they plan for the future with a comprehensive vision.
The principal goal of regional planning should be the creation of stable mixed-income communities throughout the region. We will all benefit from more equitable and effective schools, sustainable economies in our rural areas, greater affordable-housing opportunities in our suburbs and new incentives for affordable rents and homeownership in our cities. We urge states to require or encourage regional planning and the adoption of local land-use policies that equitably distribute affordable housing.
We urge the creation of a national housing trust fund with enough revenue to produce and preserve 1.5 million units of affordable housing over the next 10 years. Our top priority is families with the lowest incomes. Funds should be distributed based on matching investments by states and localities. These funds should supplement, not replace, other federal housing programs.
Nearly 1.3 million of the nation’s households entered foreclosure in 2007, and the number for 2008 will be even higher. As many as 3.5 million households are at risk for home foreclosure during the next three years.
The foreclosure crisis has hit low-income families hard. Many of us have lost our homes, often our most valuable asset. Our credit is damaged, hindering our ability to secure alternative housing. Property values in our communities have declined, reducing local tax revenues. Those communities with large numbers of foreclosed properties are suffering the effects of neglect and blight.
Those of us who have avoided foreclosure but who need to sell our homes or tap into our home equity to retire or send a child to college are finding our home values so diminished that we are unable to do much of what we had planned. As our households reduce spending to cover variable-rate mortgage payments, the effects ripple throughout the economy.
We urge the enactment of policies that impose a moratorium on adjustable rate mortgage resets and permit borrowers to refinance into fixed rate mortgages without prepayment penalties. Federal funding for homeownership and credit counseling should be provided to prevent foreclosures whenever possible. We also urge that federal law more strictly regulate the mortgage industry, banning abusive lending practices and imposing strict criminal penalties on violators.
About 1.8 million of our low-income households receive federal housing choice vouchers to help us cover the cost of housing on the private market. However, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that mismanagement in voucher distribution has led to the loss of more than 150,000 vouchers since 2004. We urge federal funding for the renewal of all vouchers in use at their full value and for the reissuing of vouchers that have been lost.
Many Americans equate the words public housing with the worst living conditions: crime, drugs and inescapable poverty, compounded by a high concentration of families in need. But for many of us with few resources, public housing is the only home we have ever known, and the only home we can afford.
The federal HOPE VI program has revitalized and redeveloped some public housing units, but it has demolished others without providing replacement housing. Since the program’s creation in 1992, many of our neediest families have been displaced. We support continued funding for the program but urge one-to-one replacement of units and state our right, as public housing residents, to return to our homes.
More than 1.4 million of our households live in homes supported by federally funded project-based rental assistance. That aid subsidizes private-market housing developments, making them affordable to our low-income families and to the elderly (two-thirds of assisted households include an elderly or disabled member). We urge annual renewal of federal appropriations to fund all project-based contracts.