Who
Needs Affordable Housing?
More
people than you might realize. The economic expansion of the 1990s
obscured certain trends and statistics that point to an increased,
not decreased, need for affordable housing. The generally accepted
definition of affordability is for a household to pay no more than
30 percent of its annual income on housing. Families who pay more
than 30 percent of their income for housing are considered cost
burdened and may have difficulty affording necessities such as food,
clothing, transportation and medical care. An estimated 12 million
renter and homeowner households now pay more then 50 percent of
their annual incomes for housing, and a family with one full-time
worker earning the minimum wage cannot afford the local fair-market
rent for a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the United States.
The lack of affordable housing is a significant hardship for low-income
households preventing them from meeting their other basic needs,
such as nutrition and healthcare, or saving for their future and
that of their families.
HUD's Response
The
expansion of the supply of affordable housing for low-income families
is at the very core of HUD's mission. The Office
of Community Planning and Development, the Office
of Housing, and the Office
of Public and Indian Housing all administer programs designed
to increase the stock of housing affordable to low-income households.
CPD's Office of Affordable Housing Programs (OAHP) administers
three separate programs designed to address the nationwide shortage
in affordable housing. The HOME Investment Partnerships, Self-Help
Homeownership (SHOP), and Homeownership Zone programs bring federal
resources directly to the state and local level for use in the development
of affordable housing units, or to assist income-eligible households
in purchasing, rehabilitating, or renting safe and decent housing.
The
HOME Program helps to expand the supply of decent, affordable
housing for low- and very low-income families by providing grants
to States and local governments called participating jurisdictions
or "PJs". PJs use their HOME grants to fund housing programs
that meet local needs and priorities. PJs have a great deal of flexibility
in designing their local HOME programs within the guidelines established
by the HOME program statute and final
rule. PJs may use their HOME funds to help renters, new homebuyers,
or existing homeowners. Since 1990 when the HOME Program was signed
into law as Title
II of the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act (the
HOME Investment Partnerships Act), over 450,000 affordable housing
units have been acquired, constructed or rehabilitated, and nearly
84,000 tenants have received direct rental assistance.
SHOP
provides funds for non-profit organizations to purchase home sites
and develop or improve the infrastructure needed to set the stage
for sweat equity and volunteer-based homeownership programs for
low-income families. SHOP is authorized under Section
11 of the Housing Opportunity Program Extension Act of 1996,
as amended, and is subject to other Federal crosscutting requirements.
National and regional nonprofit organizations or consortia with
experience in using volunteer labor to build housing may apply.
The
Homeownership
Zone program allows communities to reclaim vacant and blighted
properties, increase homeownership, and promote economic revitalization
by creating entire neighborhoods of new, single-family homes, called
Homeownership Zones. Communities that apply for HOZ funds are encouraged
to use New Urbanist design principles by providing for a pedestrian-friendly
environment, a mix of incomes and compatible uses, defined neighborhood
boundaries and access to jobs and mass transit. There have been
two competitive funding rounds, one in 1996 and one in 1997. No
further funding has yet been made available for this program.
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