States Create Innovative Solution to the Housing Crisis

A serious housing crisis exists in America today. Nearly 5.5 million families spend more than half their incomes on housing, or live in severely inadequate quarters.

Some family incomes have risen in tandem with increased rental costs, but for many lower-income workers, decent housing has simply become unaffordable.

Even during the current recession, the real estate market – for both sales and rentals – has remained strong, exacerbating low-income families’ housing problems. In 22 states, two workers earning the federal minimum wage do not make enough to afford adequate family housing. The same is true in more than half of all metropolitan areas.

"It’s time to end the widespread discrimination based on sources of income in rental housing and improve housing opportunities for all." Maryland Del. Salima Siler Marriott

Adding to the problem, is the depletion of the federal government’s subsidized housing stock as multi-decade contracts end. Landlords are declining to renew these contracts in order to take advantage of high market prices.

While public housing space is shrinking, the federal government’s response has been to expand its supply of Section 8 vouchers, flooding the market and effectively rendering vouchers useless because not enough landlords will accept them. The ineffective federal approach has forced states to examine new and innovative alternatives.

One policy gaining momentum is legislation that makes it illegal to discriminate against prospective renters based upon their source of income, such as a Section 8 voucher. Currently, four states – California, Connecticut, Oklahoma and Utah – have amended their housing anti-discrimination laws to include source of income as a protected category. Similar legislation was introduced this year in Maryland and New Jersey.

"Governments have spent decades attempting to eliminate various forms of housing discrimination," said Maryland Del. Salima Siler Marriott (Flemming Fellow-1995), sponsor of such a bill in 2001. "It’s time to end the widespread discrimination based on sources of income in rental housing and improve housing opportunities for all."

Prohibiting housing discrimination based on source of income increases the availability of affordable housing for families in need. It also permits Section 8 voucher holders to look beyond the current federal housing stock, enabling poor families to break away from areas of high-poverty concentration. Communities with a range of family incomes have the resources to provide better schools, social services and job opportunities, which helps break the cycle of poverty. Further, families who spend less on housing are able to spend more of their money in the community, building individual assets, and reducing personal debt.

Safe and affordable housing should be a basic human right. When the federal government fails to implement pragmatic solutions to the housing crisis, state leaders must come forward with their own creative policies to address the need for decent housing.