Budget 2018: What happened to affordable housing?

By Wendy Hayhurst.

No joy from Budget 2018. Governments do have the resources to tackle affordable housing shortfalls. They just don’t have the will to accord it the requisite priority. In so failing, they ignore not only the deep and lasting social costs of such neglect, but also the strong economic case for addressing housing affordability.

On Budget day 2017, I was in Brooklyn enthusing over an affordable housing development constructed on underutilised hospital land close to the subway, funded by tax credits, city council and state grants and private finance, and occupied by 146 formerly homeless households and 60 families earning less than 60% of the area median income, in a city with a 10 year housing strategy that included mandatory inclusionary zoning and preservation of existing low cost rental homes. Putting aside for one moment their recent presidential election NYC didn’t look too bad a place to be part of the affordable housing industry.

Read Wendy’s blog here

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