The United States is in a housing crisis: there are simply not enough affordable homes for the workers and families that need them. Two new reports published by Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator (VPA) offer lessons for addressing this crisis: the first paper, from Vanderbilt Law School professors Christopher Serkin and Daniel Sharfstein, examines the United States’ response to the housing shortages of World War II, where a muscular response from the federal government created badly needed housing, primarily in industrial centers where weapons and other war necessities were built. Another proposal, from affordable housing policy expert Dave Uejio, looks closely at executive actions that can encourage the expansion of a type of affordable housing known as community ownership–versions of which are already underway in locations as diverse as Denver; central Florida; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Burlington, Vermont.
War Housing, from professors Serkin and Sharfstein, looks at a time when the government was deeply involved in the creation of affordable housing, and the lessons that response holds for addressing today’s housing shortage. During World War II, housing shortages in war-critical industrial centers spurred the federal government to enact meaningful reforms to mortgage markets, create rental housing subsidies, convert hotels into apartments, invest in prefabricated housing techniques, and build housing itself. The government even partnered with leading architects like Frank Lloyd Wright to design innovative new structures that could improve speed, quality, and efficiency of new construction.
“Congress, state governments, and labor leaders realized that addressing the housing crisis was quickly becoming an urgent, even existential national crisis. They responded with a raft of innovations far beyond anything that is part of the national dialogue today,” write Serkin and Sharfstein.
In Expanding Affordable Housing Supply Without Legislation, Uejio offers a vision for the future by focusing on steps the president could take, using the laws already on the books, to facilitate the expansion of community-owned housing that would enable families to buy homes and build equity at a far more reasonable cost.
“The post-war ladder from renting to owning was established through intentional policy decisions prioritizing working families; the rungs of that ladder have disappeared in the absence of that focus. The missing rung is within reach—not through a new program, agency, or impassable legislation, but through the determined and intentional use of existing executive authority,” writes Uejio.
Community land trusts are nonprofit organizations that own land in perpetuity and use that land to keep housing affordable over time–enabling speedy housing construction and allowing homeowners to buy and build equity on the cost of the home alone, rather than defaulting to permanent rentership. While these models are widespread, they are unable to grow to meet demand; Uejio’s paper details the tools already in place to change that, all of which could be accomplished with no new legislation and no new appropriations. For instance, the president could direct the IRS to redirect low-income housing tax credits towards community ownership projects, or direct the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to exempt community ownership projects from current caps on the amount of multi-family developer loans that Fannie and Freddie can purchase.
Together, these two reports offer proven and creative solutions for addressing the lack of affordable housing in America.
Read “War Housing” and “Expanding Affordable Housing Supply Without Legislation,” or visit the VPA Substack to learn more.
About the VPA
The Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator for Political Economy and Regulation (VPA) focuses on cutting-edge topics in political economy and regulation to swiftly bring research, education, and policy proposals from infancy to maturity. To learn more about our work, visit vu.edu/vpa.