Article Spotlight—We Need More Rental Assistance, Not Just More Housing Supply

Plus, Lessons From Eviction Court Books Now Available

In an August 2023 article entitled “Don’t Buy the Hype: Building More Homes Won’t Solve Our Affordable Housing Crisis,” we lifted up the nations’ best housing experts poking holes in the argument that we can build our way out of our housing crisis:

“Alex Schwartz, Kirk McClure, Allan Mallach, and others offer the straightforward explanation that is also reported annually by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition’s Out of Reach reports, which is the same explanation our clients tell us time after time: millions of people simply do not make enough money to consistently afford market-rate housing. We routinely represent people who fell behind on rent because it amounted to 80% and more of their entire incomes from low-wage work or disability checks. As the title of a 2019 Mallach article pointed out, “Rents Will Only Go So Low, No Matter How Much We Build.””

But the call to “Just Build” as a cure-all to our housing crisis endures, so the limits of that approach bears repeating. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities earlier this month pulled together Peggy Bailey, its executive vice president for policy and program development, and Jim Parrott, an Urban Institute fellow, to insist that “Our Response to the Housing Crisis Must Include Rental Assistance, Not Just More Supply.”

“Housing policy has received an unprecedented level of attention at the federal, state, and local level,” Bailey and Parrott write. “But by focusing almost entirely on the housing shortfall, we have largely ignored those with the lowest incomes and the deepest housing needs.”

They point out that the 7 million households who pay more than half of their income for rent have so little income that their recommended monthly housing cost is just $224 per month. That of course is a fraction of the market rate and a rent cost that no for-profit landlord will ever agree to.

“To make up the considerable difference between what families and individuals at the lower end of the economic spectrum can afford and what makes economic sense for builders to build, some will need help to pay the rent,” Bailey and Parrott write. “Not surprisingly, one study after another has shown that rental assistance is highly effective at cutting homelessness, evictions, and overcrowding.”

But, as we discussed here just a few weeks ago, massive underfunding of our federal housing assistance programs has set up the cruel musical chairs game where only one in four eligible families receive the help they qualify for. That needs to change, Bailey and Parrott write:

“The rising interest in the housing affordability crisis is certainly welcome, and if we are to address it, we must address the supply shortfall. But that alone isn’t enough. We need to provide rental assistance to more of the millions of families who qualify but continue to go without the help, because without it, they will continue to suffer through a crisis in housing affordability, even if we build all the housing we need.”

You can read the entire article on CBPP’s website here.

Lessons From Eviction Court Books Now Available

I shared the news here back in February that my new book, Lessons From Eviction Court: How We Can End Our Housing Crisis, would be published soon. Now, as the photo here attests, ordered copies are finally arriving at doorsteps all over.

The book’s title is also its theme: In eviction court each week, my students and I learn about the horrible injustices in our housing system. But we also see how these injustices can be stopped.

Homelessness does not need to happen, nor do widespread evictions. The current housing crisis may be commonplace in our communities, but it is unheard of in other nations like in ours. We never saw anything like this in past generations here in the U.S., either.

I truly believe there is a day coming where the U.S. will join the many other nations where housing is a fully realized and enforceable human right for all. Hopefully, this book can help the many efforts to push us closer and closer to that day.

If you are interested, you can order the book on the Cornell University Press website, and it is also available on Amazon and Bookshop.org, etc.

Contact me at quigley2@iu.edu if you want me to share a 30% discount code provided by the publisher. All author proceeds will go to the Tenant Union Federation, founded by the amazing tenant unions in Louisville, Kansas City, Connecticut, Chicago, etc. I will be doing some author talks in the coming months, usually accompanied by other housing advocates. I will share that information here as the dates approach. Thank you.