Preserving Affordable Rental Housing
Rental housing is a critical part of the nation’s housing supply, providing affordable homes to millions of households throughout the country. Increasingly, however, many of these homes are at risk of loss from the affordable housing stock. Rental housing preservation strategies help to reduce or stop the loss of these properties and ensure that they continue to provide safe, stable, and affordable homes for working families, people with disabilities, the elderly, and many others.
Different Types of Properties at Risk
Some rental homes are affordable to low- and moderate-income families as a result of government subsidy programs that help to keep rents low. Owners of these properties receive financial incentives from the federal government, such as rent subsidies or below-market interest rates, in exchange for an agreement to keep rents affordable to lower income households for a designated period of time. As these contracts expire, however, some owners are choosing to opt out of the subsidy programs and raise rents to market levels that are out of reach for many working families.
Other rental homes are unsubsidized but nevertheless rent at below-market levels as a result of market conditions, age, or other factors. Changing market conditions may enable owners of these units to increase rents or convert their properties to upscale rentals or condos that serve higher-income households.
Physical deterioration is also a problem for units in both the subsidized and unsubsidized stock, rendering older buildings uninhabitable or forcing owners to raise rents to afford the cost of needed repairs.
Rental Housing Preservation Strategies
To prevent the loss of this essential segment of the housing stock, state and local governments are turning to a wide range of rental preservation policies, from increasing the availability of public funds reserved for preservation activities to compiling an inventory of affordable rental homes that enables early identification of properties at high-risk of loss. Other promising strategies include the adoption of right-of-first-refusal laws, which give tenants the opportunity to purchase buildings leaving the subsidized stock or converting to condos in order to maintain affordability, and other policies that help to support long-term ownership of affordable rental properties.
More on these initiatives and examples from states and localities that have taken action are available on HousingPolicy.org, the Center for Housing Policy’s online guide to state and local housing policy. The rental housing preservation section of the site draws from the experience and work produced by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Window of Opportunity Initiative.
