Affordable Housing Policies: An Overview

As urban housing markets throughout the United States increasingly exhibit challenges of affordability, federal, state, and local governments have placed renewed emphasis on housing, specifically mixed-income housing, which integrates affordable housing incentives into multifamily development projects. With such incentives, one must wonder what comprises a successful affordable housing policy and how affordable housing can be successfully implemented into a community. This article attempts to answer these questions by detailing the history of affordable housing policies, exploring some of the current affordable housing policies and programs, comparing affordable housing programs from different regions, and discussing some successful affordable housing programs and lessons that can be learned from them.

Letter from the Editors

[Excerpt] The Editorial Team is proud to release this 2016 14th Annual Volume of the Cornell Real Estate Review. This year’s issue explores a wide range of topics, including the deployment of new technologies in multifamily properties, the effects of autonomous vehicles on real estate, and the continued ramifications of the housing crisis through the legal tactics of certain mortgage lenders. Also included, a recent repositioning project– the unique turnaround of a former casino hotel property in Reno, Nevada. Furthermore, this release includes a discussion of value-added multifamily investment strategy, an analysis of the impact of rapid transit on the residential market in Hudson County, New Jersey, and a summary of federal affordable housing incentive programs in the United States. This year’s Pathways features an interview with Toll Brothers Division President Karl Mistry (Baker ’04), and the Baker Viewpoint piece explores the concept of curtailment mortgages.