The housing crisis finally gets attention in the political arena

 By Dennis Archambault

Housing is a significant determinant of health. People living in poverty are homeless or are struggling to pay their rent or mortgage payments and are at risk of homelessness. There are an estimated 550,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States, according to low-income housing advocates. City of Detroit estimates come in at 18,000.

It’s been well-documented that there is a scarcity of low-income affordable housing in the United States. Few people know about the “Faircloth Amendment” (https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/FRCLTH-LMT.PDF) otherwise known as the Housing Act of 1937. This law limits the construction of public housing units, which helps explain why the federal government may not be building new public housing. But there is also a lack of financial incentives to encourage private developers to build low-income housing. At the same time, there are libertarian arguments that no public money should be spent to support private developments.

No wonder that local advocates celebrate at every groundbreaking and every dedication of new low-income housing, even when it’s affordable units in more upscale properties or low-income apartments like the Saint Rita Apartments (https://theneighborhoods.org/story/inside-saint-rita-apartments-designed-support-detroits-homeless) which offer permanent supportive housing to help the homeless transition into a more productive role in society. This also is aligned with the principles of Housing First (https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/).

Concepts, models, and some private investment exist, but demand outpaces solutions. Until this political campaign, there has been little discussion about the housing dilemma in among political leadership. “To the extent that housing has ever been talked about in previous presidential campaigns, it’s almost always been related to middle-class homeownership,” notes Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (https://nlihc.org/). However, now it has become an issue, a credit to the advocacy of Yentel’s organization. They struggled to get presidential debate moderators to pose questions related to this issue.

The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/us/politics/housing-homelessness-2020-democrats.html) has been tracking Democratic candidates and have found all of them to have some form of housing policy to alleviate the homeless crisis. This may be largely a political platform, given the political realities of the current leadership in the U.S. Senate. In general, the two leading candidates, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have extensive housing policies that would provide various tools that could create incentives for private enterprise, support for citizens struggling with housing, and social equity requirements for homeless shelters.

Whether one argues a more extreme position or an incremental one, the public sector needs to deal with a critical determinant of health. At least they’re talking about it.

Dennis Archambault is vice president of Public Affairs for Authority Health.