Despite being some of the largest producers of affordable housing, nonprofits frequently receive less favorable terms in LIHTC deals because they don’t have the size and resources of big developers to leverage. To address this imbalance, nonprofit organizations should form networks to collectively negotiate, securing better LIHTC terms and strengthening their position in the affordable housing sector.

The LIHTC statute now effectively requires 30 years of affordability. A legislative fix would let developers elect 50 years of initial affordability and get free access to tax-exempt bonds and 4% LIHTCs to support rehabilitation after 15 years. At that point the developer could make the same election, leading to perpetual affordability. Under congressional rules, there would be no budget cost.

The establishment of Social Housing Authorities focused on publicly owned and community-driven housing models would represent a break from the traditional reliance on private developers to meet affordable housing needs and put state resources directly into housing development, ensuring permanent affordability, tenant protections, and community engagement in the housing process.

The cost to build and operate housing simply exceeds what low-income renters can afford. Greatly expanding the HCV program and/or other rental subsidy programs would do more than anything else in addressing housing affordability problems and homelessness. It would also make the financing of new housing much easier since the ready availability of rental subsidies would reduce the need for tax credits, gap financing, etc.

Passive houses have a small carbon footprint with low operating costs, and can be made more efficient by deploying concrete planks developed with injected carbon-dioxide, which reduces the carbon footprint for making concrete. In doing so, we can not only reduce the carbon footprint a home generates, making it cleaner and healthier, but also reduce the costs to operate it, making it more affordable.

Everyone needs and deserves reliable information on housing options. Aggregators for market rate housing like Apartments.com and Zillow have changed the game for that sector in providing transparency, allowing "comparison shopping", and delivering broader market analytics. A 24/7 user-centered, free online search platform covering all affordable (income-restricted) rentals in a community is fundamental for equity, fairness, and efficient operations of the affordable housing ecosystem.

Navigating the rental market can be daunting for voucher holders. We can build on the success of the federal EHV program to enhance rental assistance programs by including funding for voluntary housing search assistance and case management, as well expanding eligibility to include domestic violence survivors fleeing abuse, regardless of immigration status or shelter history.

Local court systems are addressing the prescription opiate and heroin epidemic with the institution of Treatment Courts, which provide treatment alternatives to incarceration. But opiate and heroin addicts participating in these programs face a lack of affordable, safe and sober housing. By producing newly constructed energy-efficient housing units, developed collaboratively with local Treatment Courts, a new model would bring Treatment Court treatment into these properties.

Heirs' property is a leading cause of involuntary land loss, especially among Black Americans. Many residents of these properties are at risk of losing their homes due to unresolved title issues and deferred maintenance. Combining efforts such as clearing title, estate planning, legal counseling, and educational services with home repair funds will: 1) preserve wealth for residents, and 2) protect assets and prevent further disrepair.

A suite of federal public policy solutions would better ensure that permanent supportive housing (PSH) providers receive the resources needed to effectively develop and manage properties. Solutions include: More flexibility for housing authorities to utilize project-based vouchers to support PSH properties; Expansion of RAD eligibility to include PSH properties; Basis boosts for PSH LIHTC properties; Fixes to income definitions to support placement of service-disabled veterans.

The U.S. has more housing square footage per capita than ever, but we're not making the most of it. By bringing an Airbnb-type technology into play, those with a room to rent can connect with someone looking for a home, transforming vacant bedrooms, daylight basements, dens, dining rooms, and other spaces into safe, affordable homes. This technology-enabled housing marketplace connects low-income earners with affordable rooms.

To improve housing quality and drive decarbonization we must streamline construction. Construction has faced gaps in productivity due to its lack of digitization. While important changes have come to the "front end" of real estate search, corresponding "back end" processes like renovation have not evolved significantly in years. Opportunities to streamline these relatively unglamorous processes have the potential to be transformational.

To drive new, affordable building models, state and local governments can establish "Housing Innovation Sandboxes," where new ideas are developed into real solutions. The concept is already in operation at the Terner Center at UC Berkeley and has the potential for broad impact if expanded to major cities such as New York, Houston, and Los Angeles.

The future of energy-efficient housing could be made more affordable with adequate funding for energy-efficiency projects in lower-income and historically disadvantaged communities. This can be achieved through federal policy, state grants, and allocating a portion of incentives from utility providers. This will allow companies like Parity to bring cutting-edge HVAC automation technology to the affordable housing market to help reduce operating and utility costs.

A new appropriated Housing Production Partnership Program to be run through HUD could incentivize states and localities to establish tax-abatement programs for properties that provide otherwise-unsubsidized affordable housing. Program funding would be used to match funds localities would forego by providing tax abatements. Qualifying jurisdictions would have to remove barriers to production to access funds.

By leveraging data on migration, incomes, travel times and spatial distribution of school quality and wealth, we can understand where people are moving to live, play and work. This coupled with an understanding of where first responders, teachers and lower income groups with essential jobs are living and working will allow policy makers to apply grants and tax abatements to specific parcels and release affordable housing supply.

Since the financial crisis, investors have acquired many homes previously available to first-time buyers, benefiting from cheap debt. Now, with portfolios of single-family rentals becoming less profitable, owners are shifting to build-for-rent or selling. A proposed technology would enable tenants to buy their rented homes with 10% discounts and down payment assistance, helping renters build equity as portfolios transition from Wall Street to Main Street

Resident engagement is essential for successful decarbonization projects, benefiting owners, residents, and staff. A feedback process should be built into projects and daily operations, ensuring residents have voice and agency. Government funding, such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, should support this robust engagement. Ultimately, these efforts reduce resident costs while making homes safer and healthier.

Forty-two million American families are rent-burdened, living paycheck to paycheck with no savings. Rising rents and financial shocks make housing unaffordable. This approach offers proactive financial stability programs, including splitting rent payments between the 1st and 15th of the month, and providing no-fee, no-interest rent loans of $500, helping renters stay on track and maintain affordable housing.

Mission-driven nonprofit organizations can do even more to conquer the housing crisis if municipalities cut red tape and expand the role they can play. With support of municipal officials, nonprofits can: take over the management of affordable housing properties; deliver more resources to housing by reducing pre-development costs; develop municipal-owned property; and take on market-rate deals to strengthen their balance sheets and produce more affordable housing.

All levels of government, including local, have sometimes competing entities involved in overseeing the housing development process. From zoning and planning offices, to the agencies charged with creating affordable housing, it's important to find ways to smooth the process for affordable housing development by making it a priority across all levels of government.

Lack of accessible, affordable childcare for low-income residents often leads to housing instability (or even displacement), plus creates rental arrears for landlords. That is because housing and childcare are the two highest-cost expenses for these families, especially in Black and brown communities. Closing the financing gap to ensure new affordable housing development is paired with childcare is critical to lowering costs and keeping families in their homes.

Sustainable development relies on emerging technology and practices that often are not accessible to community-based organizations (CBOs). An open-source database would support CBOs in accessing and sharing comprehensive information on decarbonization, energy efficiency, and project operations. This platform will provide CBOs with the tools and knowledge necessary to implement sustainable practices, make informed decisions, and advocate for equitable and affordable housing solutions within their communities.

MassHousing proposes a public-private partnership model: government agencies become equity investors in market-rate housing developments, making capital more affordable for developers who include affordable and energy-efficient units. This approach, already gaining traction in Massachusetts, could transform housing production nationwide while building public trust through shared investment returns with local businesses and communities.

Employers could boost workforce homeownership through innovative benefit programs, similar to tuition reimbursement. The proposal includes down-payment loans repaid through payroll deductions, mortgage loan guarantees, and shared-appreciation home purchase models. This would help recruit and retain employees while reducing the distance between affordable housing and workplaces, benefiting both managerial and non-managerial staff.

Imagine transforming affordable housing through modular manufacturing: standardized apartment components built in a controlled factory setting, then assembled on-site like building blocks. This innovative approach, pioneered by minority-owned Ginosko in Michigan, promises faster construction, lower costs, and net-zero environmental impact

There are currently over 4000 LIHTC units in Mississippi that were developed as "lease to own", meaning the developer built single family homes with the intention of selling the homes to the tenants at the end of the 15 year compliance period. We noticed that many of the tenants were not prepared to purchase, even though the monthly mortgage payment would be very close to what they had been paying in rent. Our Y16 mortgage product is based primarily on rental history and not credit score and is designed to allow LIHTC tenants to afford to buy their rental units.

Aeroseal’s patented duct and envelope-sealing technologies seal building leaks more effectively than any other solution available, promoting more energy-efficient homes, lower energy bills, and improved health and wellness for occupants. The safe process takes just a few hours to complete with no cleanup or maintenance required. The Aeroseal team continues to collaborate with utility partners and policymakers to introduce new rebate and incentive programs, such as New York’s recently announced Home Energy Rebates program.

Homes for the Future (HFTF) is an initiative sponsored by Grounded Solutions Network. HFTF leverages market forces and partnerships to secure single-family homes at scale and transition them from the speculative market to permanently affordable homeownership by leveraging the real estate investment fund model for single-family rental operations and the shared equity housing model to create a pipeline of permanently affordable homes in communities of color without reliance on public subsidy.

By taking advantage of Section 8 regulatory flexibility, public housing authorities can provide higher rents – a rent boost – for energy efficiency upgrades private landlords make to the apartments they rent to housing voucher holders. In doing so, public housing authorities can incentivize landlords to add energy efficient appliances, heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, and improve insulation and air sealing with energy efficient windows. The result is healthier, cleaner homes that cost less to operate.

We can bring clarity that housing production and affordability are allies rather than enemies, and improve the efficiency of rental assistance, by linking the expansion of rental voucher assistance to housing production. New portable vouchers for rental assistance would be issued in proportion to the amount of new housing brought online in the region. This would improve voucher utilization success rates, avoid rent inflation for lower-income renters, and support the political acceptance of new housing production as a key part of the solution to the affordability crisis.

Truly affordable housing requires subsidy. However, government can make workforce housing by providing increased density and other incentives for workforce housing. Also, while green building is desired, it is much more expensive and reduces resources significantly for affordable housing. Instead of extremely efficient buildings, the emphasis should be on simple low cost solutions to improve efficiency but not seek zero emissions.

Appreciation mortgages reduce borrowing costs for homeowners and leverage limited government or not-for-profit resources through a shared risk model to expand affordable homeownership. While these mortgages, which provide financing in return for a share of the appreciated value of the home, would be most useful in areas where homeownership is already the model for affordability, they can be deployed in the dense, high-cost cities that are dominated by affordable rental models. In doing so, they would help build the generational wealth that comes from owning a home from New York City to San Francisco.

"Being a state of innovation and with no time to waste, we took a nontraditional government approach towards solving our affordable housing crisis by creating Michigan's first statewide housing plan. The plan is based on data and input from other 7,000 individuals or organizations leading to Equity and Racial Justice not only being the first of eight priorities but also is woven throughout the plan and is a companion to the state's MI Healthy Climate and Social Determinates of Health plans, to name a few. We are also creating a collaborative, connected, and inclusive housing ecosystem in Michigan - all-hands-on-deck to solve a crisis! "

To understand the issue of housing supply, we need to understand the most important regulatory landscape affecting housing: zoning laws, enacted across ~30,000 local governments across the country. Build-out of the National Zoning Atlas can digitize, demystify, and democratize information about zoning, so that we can unlock more, and more affordable, housing.

Pronto Housing provides software to streamline affordable housing income certifications so property teams can lease up faster, stay in compliance with increasingly complex and layered financing requirements, and make housing accessible for the countless residents who don't have time for in person meetings.

By covering some of the start-up and other costs and connecting landlords with tenants with housing vouchers ready-to-go, the process can be made easier and landlords more ready to work with voucher holders. By making life easier and less risky for landlords, they’ll be more likely to house voucher holders, which in turn expands affordability.

The "21st century SRO" (Single Room Occupancy) is a concept that revisits and reimagines the traditional SRO model – once a staple in cities like New York during the 1960s-1970s. Historically, SROs provided affordable housing for low-income individuals, but their numbers have dwindled drastically (e.g., from 200,000 units in New York City to just 20,000 today). With the housing affordability gap widening, the reintroduction of SROs could offer a cost-effective way to provide housing to those in need.

Accessory Dwelling Units are increasing in popularity as a two-in-one tool to create much needed affordable housing and build wealth for house-rich/cash-poor households. A high-LTV, fixed rate second mortgage product uses the projected rental income of the property backed with philanthropic dollars to subsidize the interest rate, making ADUs more accessible for wealth creation for low- to moderate-income households.

The Colorado Housing Accelerator Initiative (CHAI) encompasses two funds, a debt fund and private equity fund providing below market rate debt and equity to support affordable middle income housing in Colorado. Each fund incorporates a "tenant equity vehicle" which shares net profits from the funds with the tenants living in properties in the loan/investment portfolio. The goal of the program is the move tenants towards asset and wealth building over time as tenants.