AEI Holds Conference on Economical Workforce Housing

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held its first annual Conference on Economical Housing by Design on October 4. The daylong event, sponsored by the National Multifamily Housing Council, focused on market-rate approaches for expanding the supply of workforce housing.

Experts representing academia, the government sector, and the real estate and financial industries provided scalable and broadly applicable approaches to expanding the supply of economical, workforce, entry-level rental, and owner-occupied housing.

Ed Pinto, resident fellow and co-director of AEI’s International Center on Housing Risk, reported on AEI’s findings about market-rate apartments at moderate rents and detailed AEI’s solution for increasing the supply of such units. According to Pinto, federal subsidies are not the best way to create affordable workforce housing; subsidies are too expensive, scarce, and slow, and are best suited to serve lower income people. Instead, Pinto called for local governments to improve land use regulations—higher density, reduced parking, expedited processing, reduced fees—and use economical design, construction, and management.

According to Mr. Pinto, these market rate apartments provide housing for “service workers, line production workers, and entry-level workers in other parts of the economy.” Nationally, these jobs account for 38% of all public and private jobs.

Throughout the conference, experts discussed the choices communities have in meeting the rental needs of these workers and why economical rental housing by design—a term used to describe naturally occurring market-rate, economical housing—is the best way to meet this demand.

Watch the video from the conference at: http://bit.ly/2dzWg5y

Read Economical Rental Housing by Design for Communities That Work at: http://bit.ly/2d8Lmo0

Read The Role of Community in Economical Rental Housing by Design for Communities That Work at: http://bit.ly/2dXM0n7