A Roadmap to Addressing Housing Affordability

While neighboring jurisdictions, such as Maryland and D.C., have created a largely inhospitable regulatory environment for developers and housing providers and driven away a significant amount of community investment, Virginia has reaped the benefits of these decisions in the form of new housing. But this doesn’t mean that the Commonwealth should rest on its laurels. There is much that we can do to continue fostering new housing construction and providing an essential safety net for Virginians who make their homes in rental housing.

Exhibit restraint

Maryland and the District of Columbia have provided cautionary lessons regarding the contrary impact of certain public policies that layer additional costs and regulatory burdens on housing providers. In this way, they have provided a helpful roadmap of what not to do. Fortunately, we can draw on examples from across the country to achieve better results.

As Virginia undergoes a political shift, we should take care to learn from policies that have successfully produced positive affordability outcomes and avoid those that haveproven ineffective. A few helpful rules of thumb have been borne out by research and the experiences of other communities nationally.

1. Policies with higher default costs to housing providers lead to higher equilibrium rents, “exacerbate housing insecurity, and lower renter welfare.”

2. Defaults on rent are overwhelmingly driven by persistent income shocks, not one-time financial emergencies. This is the case in approximately 92% of eviction cases.

Therefore, policies aimed at making it harder to evict non-paying residents only delay, rather than prevent evictions.

Foster the development of additional new housing supply

Communities across the country have found success in increasing housing supply to achieve greater housing affordability. Policymakers can advance the creation of new housing supply – and as a result, overall housing affordability – by enabling by-right zoning, allowing for greater density, and creating flexibility for additional housing types. Tax credits and expedited permitting are also effective approaches to attracting community investment.

Build and maintain an essential safety net for Virginia’s renters

Rental assistance and voucher programs have proven the most efficient way of reducing homelessness and evictions. AOBA has partnered with several housing organizations to support the 5,000 families initiative, which aims to establish a state voucher program to supplement federal housing choice (“Section 8”) funding and expand emergency rental assistance dollars to help those with one-time needs maintain housing stability. This initiative is vitally important and should be funded in the next budget.

As Virginia enters a new political era, we have an opportunity to work together to proactively address the Commonwealth’s housing affordability challenges for a more sustainable future. To address housing affordability challenges and meet our housing production goals, we need to view housing providers and their investors not as adversaries, but as vital partners.