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Sunday, December 05, 2004
Eclipsed on federal scene, housing issues rise in the states
Neal Peirce
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As long as housing issues were defined as a shelter for the poor, few people seemed to care much. But when availability of affordable housing gets defined as an economic development and growth issue, it's suddenly important.
This truth is not apparent in the nation's capital, where the issue has been receiving scant attention and such programs as Section 8 housing assistance and public housing may now face severe cutbacks at the hands of the politically triumphant Bush White House and Republican Congress. It's no accident, as my colleague David Broder observes, that the Cabinet agency "most remote from this White House'' is the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
But in the real world, "red'' and "blue'' states alike, it's a radically different story. Complaints are growing about teachers, police, firefighters and other public servants who can't afford to live in the towns where they work. And now there's a pressing economic issue: As states compete for the younger, well-educated professional workers that corporations prize so much these days, many are finding that fast-escalating housing costs can scare off talent and hinder business expansion.
"When I asked employers what is the number one reason they would not expand in Massachusetts,'' says Gov. Mitt Romney, "I expected to hear taxes or regulations. But instead, they cited lack of affordable housing, lack of entry-level housing opportunities.''
Added to that, the lack of reasonably priced housing close to employment centers is forcing more and more low- and middle-income families to choose locations far out in the countryside. "Drive until you qualify,'' goes the saying.
But there's a heavy price to pay: vehicle miles traveled escalate, highway expenditures shoot up, air pollution increases. Duplicative schools and public services are required.
For governors, with silo-like departments reporting to them - transportation, human services, education, community affairs and others - it's initially difficult to see the web of connections. But more state chief executives, possibly pushed along by the smart growth movement, are detecting the intertwined bottom-line consequences of a lack of affordable housing.
The National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices has trumpeted the ties in a new paper by Feather Houstoun, former New Jersey state treasurer and Pennsylvania secretary of public welfare. The Fannie Mae Foundation focused its yearly housing conference last month on state policies to strengthen communities, featuring efforts in such states as Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio.
Romney was present to explain why, as a Republican and "free market guy,'' he appointed Doug Foy, a Democrat and noted environmentalist, to head his super- Cabinet encompassing the departments of transportation, energy, the environment and housing. A past governor, he said, recalled Cabinet meetings in which "the transportation and environment people screamed at each other.'' Romney's resolve: "to make the Cabinet agencies responsible for the future of the state to work together.''
The four Massachusetts agencies controlling the state's major capital projects ($5 billion yearly) now plan operations and budget jointly ``with housing in the center of how they think and work,'' says Foy. Multifamily housing starts, previously among the nation's lowest, have doubled in two years - a high proportion in or near Boston and employment centers.
Romney and Foy also claim a "roaring start" for their program of transit-oriented development, dubbed "Take It to the T'" - pushing housing units and commercial development on government-owned land around stations of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell created an Office of Housing and Community Revitalization to work across agency lines, and redirected state monies his predecessors had earmarked for building suburban office parks. Rendell has held personal summits in all of Pennsylvania's counties, regularly sends out teams to consult with towns on their needs, and kicked off such efforts as an "Elm Street" program to promote downtown housing in older cities.
In many states, housing slips in with other agendas - as part of a massive land use reassessment under Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, for example, or part of Utah's landmark quality growth effort begun by Mike Leavitt (now federal Environmental Protection Agency administrator). Increasingly across the country, there's talk of creating housing opportunities for all ages and income groups in every town, though that often raises worries about land and building costs.
What we're seeing is a rush of pilot programs - none huge in itself, but each a hint of how to whittle away at the nation's yawning housing affordability gap. Cutbacks in federal funding may hurt a lot. But if - and it's a big if - the states' new broad-gauged thinking about housing spreads quickly, there's at least a chance of decent housing for more millions of us, and a healthier country to boot.
Neal Peirce's e-mail address is nrp@citistates.com.
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