As someone who worked with homeless families and individuals for many years, I was often able to spot the signs of houseless people on the street, but now almost every drive, bike ride or walk through Minneapolis confronts us with the in-your-face realities of our nation’s housing crisis.
Experience working with people in need of housing is no longer necessary. The realities of our housing production failures are unavoidable; as we move through the city, there are tents and many obviously houseless people.
Call almost any county human services office in Minnesota and ask if the lack of affordable housing in their jurisdiction is a problem. It is easy to predict their likely response.
People with no place to call home are evident in urban and rural Minnesota. The most recent Minnesota Homeless Study conducted by Wilder Research found one-third of Minnesota’s houseless population is in Greater Minnesota.
Housing problems manifest differently in different regions, but public policy failures related to housing are a national issue. And they get worse with each passing day.
First, we have to understand that the solutions must come from the federal government. It is impossible for any single state — even Minnesota — to solve this housing shortage.
You can’t solve Washington, D.C.,’s problems in St. Paul.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition, a nonprofit organization founded in 1974, estimates there is a shortage of over 7.3 million homes “affordable and available for renters with the lowest incomes.” Fannie Mae claims the shortage is less than four million, but it doesn’t matter which estimate is right for the millions of Americans looking for affordable housing options.
NLIHC policy recommendations have been consistent for years:
-Significantly increase the number of federal housing vouchers for families and individuals.
-Increase the production of deeply affordable housing units.
-Provide more emergency and transitional housing to get us through this crisis.
All three of these solutions are necessary to bring housing stability to low-income Americans.
Some states have the talent and resources to make the needed federal funds go further and accomplish more. Minnesota is one of those states. Sadly, even historic investments in affordable housing are inadequate to fix the problem; we need sensible federal housing policies.
We don’t have that now. The last time we had sensible federal public policies for housing was before 1980. The problem has grown over decades because housing subsidies favored people who itemized their income taxes. This is not how to create affordable housing. It only reduces taxes for well-off Americans. Worse, it encourages debt and McMansions.
To solve our national housing problems, we must phase out the mortgage interest deduction — tens of billions of dollars going to well-off families who don’t need a government subsidy — and direct those monies and more to creating affordable housing. We need housing units appropriate for the variety of affordable housing needs in every part of the United States.
Other regions and cities should follow Minnesota’s groundbreaking efforts to focus state resources on affordable housing and implement pro-affordable housing policies at the local level.
In support of local efforts, AARP and the National Building Museum published Making Room: Housing for a Changing America. The editors of Making Room start by debunking the inaccurate and outdated assumptions shaping current housing markets. They then examine changes necessary in zoning, the need for more midsize housing options, and other creative solutions.
This same AARP housing initiative also provides resources about housing and building types largely abandoned by the housing industry in recent decades: missing middle housing Missing middle housing includes the housing continuum between single-family houses and large apartment buildings, the sort of housing options we need more of to meet the diverse needs of our communities.
To reduce the number of houseless individuals living on the street and provide affordable housing options for people of all ages, we need to consider design issues, planning and zoning issues and emerging 21st-century housing needs.
But more than anything, we need to back up these efforts with federal housing policy changes focused on affordability, accessibility, sustainability, and equity. We must also phase out the mortgage interest deduction for high-income taxpayers who itemize (tax expenditures) and allocate those funds to policies focusing on the needs of low and moderate-income families (with a mixture of budget and tax expenditures).
We should have done this decades ago because much damage has been done. The best time to build affordable housing was during the last four decades; now we are appallingly behind. But there is no better time to start than now. Fair and just public policies at every level of government must serve those with the greatest need.
Keith Luebke retired from teaching nonprofit leadership courses and has several decades of experience directing nonprofit organizations. He lives in Mankato, Minn.