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Housing affordable to those with a median household income

Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and a number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency homeless shelters, to transitional housing, to non market rental (also known as social or subsidized housing), to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership. Housing choice is a response to a complex set of economic, social, and psychological impulses. For example, some households may choose to spend more on housing because they feel they can afford to, while others may not have a choice.

There are several means of defining and measuring affordable housing. The definition and measurement may change in different nations, cities, or for specific policy goals.

The definition of affordable housing may change depending on the country and context. For example, in Australia, the National Affordable Housing Summit Group developed their definition of affordable housing as housing that is " reasonably adequate in standard and location for lower or middle income households and does not cost so much that a household is unlikely to be able to meet other basic needs on a sustainable basis." Affordable housing in the United Kingdom includes "social rented and intermediate housing, provided to specified eligible households whose needs are not met by the market." In some contexts, affordable housing may only mean subsidized or public housing whereas in other cases it may include naturally occurring affordable housing or "affordable" by different incomes levels from no income households to moderate income but cost burdened households.

The median multiple indicator, recommended by the World Bank and the United Nations, rates affordability of housing by dividing the median house price by gross (before tax) annual median household income). <blockquote>A common measure of community wide affordability is the number of homes that a household with a certain percentage of median income can afford. For example, in a perfectly balanced housing market, the median household (the wealthier half of households) could officially afford the median housing option, while those poorer than the median income could not afford the median home. 50% affordability for the median home indicates a balanced market. and Canada, a commonly accepted guideline for housing affordability is a housing cost, including utilities, that does not exceed 30% of a household's gross income. Some definitions include maintenance costs as part of housing costs. Canada, for example, switched to a 25% rule from a 20% rule in the 1950s. In the 1980s this was replaced by a 30% rule.

There are several types of housing affordability indexes that take a number of factors, not just income, into account when measuring housing affordability. The American National Association of Realtors and other groups measure market housing through a housing affordability index which measures whether or not a typical family could qualify for a mortgage loan on a typical home. This index calculates affordability based on the national median priced single family home, the typical family median income, and the prevailing mortgage interest rate to determine if the median income family can qualify for a mortgage on a typical home. To interpret the indices, a value of 100 means that a family with the median income has exactly enough income to qualify for a mortgage on a median priced home. Other groups have also created amenity based housing affordability indexes. The Center for Neighborhood Technology developed the Housing + Transportation (H+T) Affordability Index provides a comprehensive view of affordability that includes both the cost of housing and the cost of transportation at the neighborhood level. CNT notes that the 30% of household income affordability measurementment results in little over half (55%) of U. S. neighborhoods being considered "affordable" for the typical household.

Some analysts believe income is the primary factornot price and availability, that determines housing affordability. In a market economy the distribution of income is the key determinant of the quantity and quality of housing obtained. Therefore, understanding affordable housing challenges requires understanding trends and disparities in income and wealth. Housing is often the single biggest expenditure of low and middle income families. For low and middle income families, their house is also the greatest source of wealth. Another method of studying affordability looks at the regular hourly wage of full time workers who are paid only the minimum wage (as set by their local, regional, or national government). This methods attempts to determine if workers at that income can afford adequate housing.

Each method of measuring or defining affordable housing has some weaknesses or limitations. Some organizations and agencies consider the cost of purchasing a single family home; others look exclusively at the cost of renting an apartment. Many U. S. studies, for example, focus primarily on the median cost of renting a two bedroom apartment in a large apartment complex for a new tenant. These studies often lump together luxury apartments and slums, as well as desirable and undesirable neighborhoods. While this practice is known to distort the true costs, it is difficult to provide accurate information for the wide variety of situations without the report being unwieldy. Often, only legal, permitted, separate housing is considered when calculating the cost of housing. The low rent costs for a room in a single family home, or an illegal garage conversion, or a college dormitory are generally excluded from the calculation, no matter how many people in an area live in such situations. Because of this study methodology, median housing costs tend to be slightly inflated. Costs are generally considered on a cash (not accrual) basis. Thus a person making the last payment on a large home mortgage might live in officially unaffordable housing one month, and very affordable housing the following month, when the mortgage is paid off. This distortion can be significant in areas where real estate costs are high, even if incomes are similarly high, because a high income allows a higher proportion of the income to be dedicated towards buying an expensive home without endangering the household's ability to buy food or other basic necessities.

Globally, it is estimated that 1.6 billion people live in inadequate housing conditions. The majority of that population live in "urban slums" which are highly populated, impoverished residential areas consisting of densely packed housing that lack proper shelter and basic necessities such as clean water, food, hygiene facilities, and electricity. Slums typically form in developing countries as populations migrate from rural to urban areas searching for employment and better living conditions. But due to the higher prices of urban living and a range of other factors such as economic stagnation, migrators find themselves forced to relocate to such slums. Meanwhile, there are approximately 140 million people worldwide who are homeless, usually as a result of being evicted from slums. Since slum residents don't own a title or lease to property, they are often evicted from their home by someone with a claim to the land and left without one. The same principle is applied in the United States as people who are unable to afford their mortgage or rent are evicted and left homeless.

In September 2019, the Council of Economic Advisers from the Executive Office of the President of the United States published the report "The State of Homelessness in America". The report found that "[O]ver half a million people go homeless on a single night in the United States" with approximately 65% or 350,000 people living in homeless shelters and 35% – just under 200,000 people – are unsheltered in the streets (living on sidewalks or in parks, cars, or abandoned buildings). Almost half (47%) of all unsheltered homeless people are found in the state of California. Rates of sheltered homelessness are highest in Boston, New York City, Washington D. C., with NYC alone containing over one fifth of all sheltered people in the U. S. There are more than 500 city regions of more than one million inhabitants in the world. Cities become megacities become megalopolitan city regions and even "galaxies" of more than 60 million inhabitants. The Yangtze Delta Greater Shanghai region now surpasses 80 million. Tokyo Yokohama adjacent to Osaka Kobe Kyoto have a combined population of 100 million. Rapid population growth leads to increased need for affordable housing in many cities. The availability of affordable housing in proximity of mass transit and linked to job distribution has become severely imbalanced in this period of rapid regional urbanization and growing density convergence.

Housing affordability is more than just a personal trouble experienced by individual households who cannot easily find a place to live. Lack of affordable housing is considered by many urban planners to have negative effects on a community's overall health.

Lack of affordable housing can make low cost labor more scarce, and increase demands on transportation systems (as workers travel longer distances between jobs and affordable housing). "Faced with few affordable options, many people attempt to find less expensive housing by buying or renting farther out from their place of employment, but long commutes often result in higher transportation costs that erase any savings on shelter." This has been called the "drive 'til you qualify" approach, which causes far flung development and forces people to drive longer distances to get to work, to get groceries, to take children to school, or to engage in other activities. In both large metropolitan areas and regional towns where housing prices are high, a lack of affordable housing places local firms at a competitive disadvantage. They are placed under wage pressures as they attempt to decrease the income/housing price gap. Key workers have fewer housing choices if prices rise to non affordable levels. Variations in affordability of housing between areas may create labour market impediments. Potential workers are discouraged from moving to employment in areas of less affordability. They are also discouraged from migrating to areas of high affordability as the low house prices and rents indicate low capital gain potential and poor employment prospects. Lack of affordable housing can make low cost labour scarcer (as workers travel longer distances).

"In addition to the distress it causes families who cannot find a place to live, lack of affordable housing is considered by many urban planners to have negative effects on a community's overall health." Housing cost increases in American cities have been linked to declines in enrollment at local schools. The American Journal of Public Health recognizes homelessness as a public health issue. In a 2013 survey, a lack of affordable housing was the number one in the list of causes of homelessness among families with children and unaccompanied individuals. Studies through the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry have shown that access to rapid permanent housing with treatment, rehabilitation, and support services have led to a decrease in shelter and emergency department costs. Affordable Housing is found to reduce the likelihood that a family will be forced to move due to financial challenges such as eviction, foreclosure, or rent increase. A study focusing on the effects of foreclosure on student academic performance within the Boston public school system, found a relationship that suggests foreclosures have a small negative association with individual students' test score and attendance, controlling for the student's previous test score or attendance. A 1996 technical report also found that teachers that teach students that have had to move with a high frequency have had to include a reduction in instructional pacing and more review to accommodate variation and uncertainty in student learning.

A new subsection of affordable housing has emerged: sustainable affordable housing. Many researchers have contributed to this subsection, discovering innovative methods to make affordable housing less environmentally detrimental. One method emphasized is creating disaster resistant affordable housing units to reduce the impact of climate change related natural disasters.

Policy makers at all levels – global, national, regional, municipal, community associations – are attempting to respond to the issue of affordable housing, a highly complex crisis of global proportions, with a myriad of policy instruments. infrastructural changes. There has been an increase among policy makers in affordable housing as the price of housing has increased dramatically creating a crisis in affordable housing. "Housing Policies provide a remarkable litmus test for the values of politicians at every level of office and of the varied communities that influence them. Often this test measures simply the warmth or coldness of heart of the more affluent and secure towards families of a lower socio economic status." To combat slums, homelessness, and other social and economic impacts of a housing unaffordability, many groups have argued for a "right to housing". Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) also guarantees the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living.

One potential means of addressing affordable housing is through public policy instruments that focus on the demand side of the market, programs that help households reach financial benchmarks that make housing affordable. This can include approaches that simply promote economic growth in generalin the hope that a stronger economy, higher employment rates, and higher wages will increase the ability of households to acquire housing at market prices. Federal government policies define banking and mortgage lending practices, tax and regulatory measures affecting building materials, professional practices (ex. real estate transactions). Some municipalities have also reduced the amount of parking that must be built for a new structure to reduce land acquisition and construction costs. Other common strategies include reducing permitting costs and wait times for new housing, permitting small lot development, multi family tax exemptions, density bonuses, preserving existing affordable housing, and transit oriented development. Existing housing that is affordable may be used, instead of building new structures. This is called "Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing", or NOAH. In a housing cooperative people join on a democratic basis to own or manage the housing facility in which they live. Generally these housing units are owned and controlled collectively by a corporation which is owned and controlled jointly by a group of individuals who have equal shares in that corporation. In market rate cooperatives owners can accumulate equity and sell their share of the corporation at market rate. In a limited equity housing cooperative there are restrictions on the profits members can earn from selling their share (such as caps on sale price) to meant to maintain affordable housing. Homeowners then purchase or build a home on land trust property but do not purchase the land thus reducing costs. If the homeowner sells, they may be limited on what they may sell the home for or the family may earn only a portion of the increased property value with the remainder kept by the trust to preserve affordable housing There are over 225 community land trusts in the United States.

An article by libertarian writer Virginia Postrel in the November 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly reported on a study of the cost of obtaining the "right to build" (i. e. a building permit, red tape, bureaucracy, etc.) in different U. S. cities. The "right to build" cost does not include the cost of the land or the cost of constructing the house. The study was conducted by Harvard economists Edward Glaeser and Kristina Tobio. According to the chart accompanying the article, the cost of obtaining the "right to build" adds approximately $600,000 to the cost of each new house that is built in San Francisco. The study, cited, published by Ed Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko, reached its conclusion about the value of the right to build in different localities based on a methodology of comparing the cost of single family homes on quarter acre versus half acre lots to get a marginal land price and then comparing the selling price of homes to construction costs to get a price for the land plus other costs, with the difference between the two being attributed to the cost of zoning and other local government permitting and regulations.

Many governments put restrictions on the size or cost of a dwelling that people can live in, making it essentially illegal to live permanently in a house that is too small, low cost or not compliant with other government defined requirements. Generally, these laws are implemented in an attempt to raise the perceived "standard" of housing across the country. This can lead to thousands of houses across a country being left empty for much of the year even when there is a great need for more affordable housing; such is the case in countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, where there is a common tradition to have a summer house. This sometimes raises concerns for the respect of rights such as the right to use one's property. In the United States, most cities have zoning codes that set the minimum size for a housing unit (often 400 square feet) as well as the number of non related persons who can live together in one unit, resulting in having "outlawed the bottom end of the private housing market, driving up rents on everything above it." In California in 2021, researchers estimated that parking requirements increase the cost of building affordable housing by up to $36,000 per unit, and up to $75,000 per unit in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Until 2018, in Los Angeles, for an affordable housing development to be allowed to be built, it required a "letter of acknowledgement" from the city councilperson in whose district it would be constructed. This allowed city council members to block affordable housing developments in their district without having to give any reason.

Subsidized housing is government or non for profit sponsored economic assistance aimed towards alleviating housing costs and expenses, generally for people with low to moderate incomes. Subsidy based approaches may take the form of government sponsored rental subsidies, government sponsored rental supplements, tax credits, or housing provided by a non for profit. In a mutual aid housing cooperative, a group of families forms a cooperative to collectively build, own, and manage land by participating in the process of constructing the housing for the cooperative. Each family is responsible for contributing labor towards the construction of the housing complex to reduce costs and members take on responsibilities before, during, and after the construction. The Uruguayan Federation of Mutual Aid Housing Cooperatives (FUCVAM) has completed nearly 500 housing cooperatives housing more than 25,000 families.

Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually built and owned by a government authority, either central or local. In some countries, public housing is focused on providing affordable housing for low income earners while in others, such as Singapore, citizens across a wide range of incomes live in public housing. In Vienna, Austria, social housing may be completely government built and run or include a mixture of public land and private sector construction and management. Combined, the two types of housing represent about 46 percent of the city's housing stock (26% government owned and managed and 20% a public/private partnership) and house people with a wide variety of incomes.

Containerized housing units are pre fabricated housing units built out of shipping containers or similar containers. They can be stacked or connected to make a larger home, or to make a block of multi family housing. Reefer containers or refrigerated containers are containers built to haul refrigerated or frozen products. Compared to standard shipping containers, they have good insulation in the walls, ceiling, and floor, so they maintain a more comfortable temperature.

Triple decker triplex housing is more prominent in the New England area and became popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century with the immigration from Europe during that time. Each floor is separately own or rented out. If they are owned like a condo an HOA maintains ownership of the outside and yard.

5 over 1s down to 1 over 1 buildings have the parking spaces below the living spaces and allow for higher density building, because parking lots take up a lot of space and on street parking limits the density of zoning for a particular lot.

Different countries and cities throughout the world have found unique ways to respond to the need for affordable housing. In some provinces within China, for example, local governments have instituted "tradable land quotas." These quotas allow developers to construct new housing units at the outer bounds of the city limits, and, in return, land outside of the city is protected from development. On the other hand, in Los Angeles, the city government recently instituted legislation that allows motels to be transformed into affordable housing units, regardless of zoning regulations. In Brussels, an architectural firm was able to repurpose a soap factory, creating affordable housing units that included 1–6 bedroom apartments, studios, lofts, and duplexes. These residential units are also energy efficient, so have both social and environmental benefit. While innovative building practices have been incredibly successful in countries such as Nigeria and India, cities in more developed countries have found unique ways to increase affordable housing in dense urban areas through partnerships with private developers. For example, in Germany, cities including Berlin and Hamburg have established partnerships with private developers to construct new affordable housing units. In a 2011 agreement, developers in Hamburg agreed to build 3500 new housing units per year and 30% of these units would only be available to low and middle income households. To support the developer's work, Hamburg's city government agreed to provide city owned land and acquire privately owned land on which the units would be constructed. Additionally, Hamburg modified urban planning regulations in locations occupied predominantly by low income individuals to simplify the process of affordable housing construction. On the other hand, in Berlin, the Alliance for Housing Construction, which was established in 2014, brought together Berlin's local government, private landlords, and public utility landlords to make rental units in the city more affordable. Public utility landlords such as non profit organizations agreed to build 3000 new dwellings each year. Between 300 and 1000 of these units would be provided as "non serviced rents." Additionally, private landlords agreed to construct 6000 units each year, and between 600 and 1200 of these units would be provided as "non serviced rents."