If We Could Change Housing Tomorrow - The Housing Lab

Let's begin with the most obvious problem.

America simply does not have enough housing in the places where people need it.

Freddie Mac has estimated that the United States is short approximately 3.7 million housing units relative to long-term demand.

Now, whenever we hear a number like 3.7 million, it's easy for us to become abstract.

So think about it differently.

Imagine Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix.

Now imagine trying to build enough homes to house the equivalent of several major American cities.

That's the scale we're discussing.

And we've reached the point for many reasons.

Land costs, construction costs, interest rates, labor shortages, zoning, my favorite, permitting.

infrastructure, community opposition, financing, complexity.

There isn't one thing, which also means that there isn't one solution.

But there is a basic principle we need to accept.

When housing supply consistently fails to keep pace with where people want and need to live, affordability becomes harder.

So yes, we need to build.

But here's where I want to add

another word, preserve.

Because building millions of new affordable homes while allowing existing affordable housing to disappear makes little sense, right? It's like filling a bucket while ignoring the hole in the bottom.

Every community should know, with affordable housing, what affordable housing do we already have? When do affordability restrictions expire? Which mutually or which naturally affordable properties are vulnerable to redevelopment? Where are property owners struggling with rising insurance, taxes, maintenance, or financing costs? We should be intervening before these homes disappear.

I've always said that.

Production gets ribbon cuttings.

Preservation doesn't get won.

Maybe.

But the family that gets to remain in an affordable housing apartment doesn't care whether that affordability came from groundbreaking ceremony or a preservation strategy.

They care that they still

Let's begin with the most obvious problem.

America simply does not have enough housing in the places where people need it.

Freddie Mac has estimated that the United States is short approximately 3.7 million housing units relative to long-term demand.

Now, whenever we hear a number like 3.7 million, it's easy for us to become abstract.

So think about it differently.

Imagine Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix.

Now imagine trying to build enough homes to house the equivalent of several major American cities.

That's the scale we're discussing.

And we've reached the point for many reasons.

Land costs, construction costs, interest rates, labor shortages, zoning, my favorite, permitting.

infrastructure, community opposition, financing, complexity.

There isn't one thing, which also means that there isn't one solution.

But there is a basic principle we need to accept.

When housing supply consistently fails to keep pace with where people want and need to live, affordability becomes harder.

So yes, we need to build.

But here's where I want to add

another word, preserve.

Because building millions of new affordable homes while allowing existing affordable housing to disappear makes little sense, right? It's like filling a bucket while ignoring the hole in the bottom.

Every community should know, with affordable housing, what affordable housing do we already have? When do affordability restrictions expire? Which mutually or which naturally affordable properties are vulnerable to redevelopment? Where are property owners struggling with rising insurance, taxes, maintenance, or financing costs? We should be intervening before these homes disappear.

I've always said that.

Production gets ribbon cuttings.

Preservation doesn't get won.

Maybe.

But the family that gets to remain in an affordable housing apartment doesn't care whether that affordability came from groundbreaking ceremony or a preservation strategy.

They care that they still