As municipalities throughout Washington and throughout the country have found, there is no easy solution to the nation’s housing crisis.
Recent headlines at Columbian.com have included: “Clark County Council OKs certain multifamily housing in commercial or mixed-use zones”; “Cities cut red tape to turn empty offices into housing”; and “Costs remain high for WA affordable housing projects.” Meanwhile, the Legislature and various municipal governments have made commitments to boost the housing supply and mitigate a costly homeless crisis.
Such efforts are necessary, but they must be accompanied by an examination of what has created the situation. Specifically, Americans must recognize the role the federal government has played in limiting housing construction.
For example, a 1977 budget proposal from outgoing President Gerald Ford called for Congress to fund construction of 506,000 low-income housing units. By 1996, under the Clinton administration, federal funding supported construction of fewer than 9,000 new housing units — less than 2 percent of the number from two decades earlier.
Starting with the Reagan administration, the budget of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has routinely been slashed over the past four decades. That has reduced publicly funded construction, rental assistance and maintenance for public housing. At the same time, other threads of the social safety net have been shredded, such as mental health care.
Meanwhile, the free market has failed to fill the gaps. Constructing low-income housing, after all, is not as profitable as high-end housing, and the free market is incentivized by profits.
According to the libertarian Cato Institute: “Federal housing assistance was reduced unmercifully during the 1980s … The federal government has abandoned its 50-year-old commitment to build public housing.”
That has been accompanied by a philosophy of leaving pressing problems to be dealt with by the states. While issues often can be more effectively managed at the state level, the federal government’s shift in housing policy has had a deleterious effect.
President Joe Biden has recommended legislation to provide a tax credit for first-time homebuyers — a strategy that would increase demand and would further increase home prices if not accompanied by an increase in construction.
President-elect Donald Trump has proposed making more federal land available for housing and reducing regulations that delay construction and drive up costs. But without a focus on construction of affordable housing, those efforts would have only a minor impact on homelessness.
Last week, the Clark County Council approved code changes that will allow construction of multifamily housing in commercial or mixed-use zones. And the Vancouver City Council has used an Affordable Housing Fund to provide rental assistance, build new housing and preserve existing housing.
These strategies are necessary. As one developer of affordable housing told the county council, “Making this change would bring immediate relief to that and make change very, very quickly.”
But on a large scale, housing policy takes decades to have a broad impact. The effects of federal policy changes in the 1970s and 1980s have reached critical mass only in recent years.
Cities and counties are wise to address the issue as best they can. But solving it requires significant federal investment.