| April 5, 2019
Oregon’s Senate Bill 10 is a Transportation Bill, Not Just a Housing Bill
To leverage our public roads and infrastructure investments – generations and billions of dollars in the making – Up for Growth Action advocates for allowing more households to live near transit. One of the major factors limiting transit usage is that low-density zoning regulations restrict the number of houses that can be built in transit-served […]
| March 29, 2019
Enabling Communities to Address California’s Housing Crisis
There’s hardly a day that goes by without another story being written about the housing crisis in California. From the Bay Area all the way down to San Diego, and even in the Inland Empire and Central Valley, millions of Californians are cost-burdened, spending well over 30% of their gross income on housing costs. In fact, […]
| March 22, 2019
Housing 2020
Though the next Presidential election is nearly 20 months away, Decision 2020 is already in full swing. High-profile Democratic candidates are announcing election bids on a near-weekly basis, confirming that the size of the 2020 Democratic primary field will be historic. Diners in New Hampshire, living rooms in Iowa, and churches in South Carolina are […]
| March 15, 2019
Housing is the Environmental Issue of Our Time
Housing is, practically by definition, an environmental issue. Where we build housing says a lot about our views on and treatment of the land on which we live and how welcoming we are of all in every neighborhood. Yet “environmental policy” rarely addresses housing, despite it having a significant impact on land usage, vehicle emissions, […]
| March 8, 2019
It’s Not Just More Supply – Addressing Existing Housing Plays an Important Role in Curing America’s Broken Housing Ecosystem
Up for Growth National Coalition’s Housing Underproduction in the U.S. report pegged the American housing shortage at 7.3-million homes, which spanned 22 states and the District of Columbia. Indeed, our national housing shortage is much more severe than originally thought, affecting the quality of life of millions of families. The findings of the report clearly indicate […]
| March 1, 2019
The First Step in Solving Washington’s Housing Crisis is Preserving Existing Affordable Housing Programs
Unless the Washington state legislature acts, over 2,000 units of affordable housing could suddenly become unaffordable over the next four years, potentially increasing rents by as much as 100% and forcing thousands of low-income families out of their homes. That’s because an existing tax exemption designed to subsidize affordable housing development across the state is […]
| February 22, 2019
Aligning Oregon’s Transportation and Housing Investments
Last fall, Up for Growth National Coalition released its Housing Underproduction in Oregon report, determining that from 2000 – 2015, Oregon was 155,000 homes short of meeting its housing needs. For several years after the 2008 recession, Oregon only produced six housing units for every 10 new households in the state – indicating a severe imbalance […]
| February 15, 2019
Why Policy Makers are Beginning to Tackle Exclusionary Zoning Across the U.S.
Last week, I had the honor of introducing Heather Worthington at the Urban Land Institute Terwilliger Center for Housing’s Housing Opportunity 2019 conference in Newport Beach, California. If Heather’s name isn’t familiar to you, the policy she helped create, Minneapolis 2040, likely is. Heather is the Director of Long Range Planning for the City of Minneapolis, where she […]
| January 18, 2019
A Housing Agenda for Rural America
Early in 2019, I accepted an invitation to speak at the Mason County Affordable Workforce Housing Summit, in Washington state’s relatively remote Olympic Peninsula. We often tend to think of housing as a uniquely urban or suburban issue, or one that only impacts high-growth areas. But rural America faces many challenges when it comes to […]
| December 9, 2018
Housing in the 116th Congress
After the runoff in the Mississippi Senate special election and the final ballots in California are counted, Election 2018 has finally wrapped. In the House, Democrats will take control for the first time since 2010 after netting 40 seats – their biggest gain in a single election since the “Watergate Babies” class of 1974. Democrats […]
| November 7, 2018
California is 3.4-million homes short of what’s needed. Here are some solutions to fix the problem
It likely comes as no surprise to many readers that California is underproducing housing. According to Up for Growth’s latest report, “Housing Underproduction in California,” from 2000 – 2015, America’s most populous state fell 3.4-million housing units short of meeting demand. This happened while the state was simultaneously experiencing unprecedented economic growth. California’s 3.4 million […]
| October 30, 2018
The Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability
America is facing a new type of housing crisis, one of affordability. In the wake of the Great Recession, a housing shortage, coupled with house prices increasing at a pace faster than wages, has developed into a major issue of housing affordability. To solve this crisis, we need new ideas. The Ivory Prize for Housing […]
| October 23, 2018
Why older homes become more unaffordable if new homes cost more to build
The cost of housing is rapidly on the rise in nearly every corner of the country. In fact, over 11 million renters pay more than half of their incomes on rent. Today, in my first insights report, I’m going to explore the dynamics of a certain aspect our nation’s affordability crisis – the increasing unaffordability […]
