December 2000

Planning

Copyright by American Planning Association

Keys to Affordable Housing

Affordable housing needs a champion, someone people will listen to and who knows how to get things done. And that champion needs a platform. That, in a nutshell, is the key to ensuring affordable housing in your region, says Caren Dewar, community development director for Minnesota's Metropolitan Council.

Dewar was a participant in a symposium on regional approaches to affordable housing, held in late October in APA's Chicago office and sponsored by HUD and the Fannie Mae Foundation. The group of nine academics, planners, and housing administrators came from around the country. Joseph Whorton of the University of Georgia acted as faciltator.

The symposium was the first step in a longer project that will result in an APA Planning Advisory Service report on regional affordable housing strategies. Coauthors Stuart Meck, FAICP, Marya Morris, AICP, and John Bredin will also survey PAS members to learn about prevailing current practices. That material will form the basis for a series of case studies.

Roughly halt the states now require, or at least authorize, some type of housing planning," says Meck. "And some states actively require some connection to the regional level. The next step is to make housing planning part of growth management planning."

Dewar came away from the symposium with two ideas. First, she says, "we must incent the private sector to do better. We can't simply rely on public subsidies when 95 percent of all housing is built by the private sector." And, she says, "we need to educate folks so they understand why affordable housing is important, that it's for the people who work in their region."

This month, a task force of mayors in the Twin Cities area is expected to come out with recommendations for increasing that region's affordable housing supply, Dewar says.