Preserving Affordable Housing Through Existing Stock

In a piece in The Philadelphia Citizen, Diana Lind argues that the most cost-effective way to create more affordable housing is to buy existing housing stock.

This concept grew in popularity during the pandemic, when cities started looking to hotels and other underused properties as potential sources of affordable housing stock. California’s Project Homekey, for example, added or preserved 12,500 affordable housing units in the state.

“Seeing these advantages, some forward-thinking municipal governments have sought to make it even easier to get their hands on property, through an option to have a right of first refusal on multifamily properties.” Lind explains the approach, which gives local governments, affordable housing providers, and/or residents the right to make the first purchase offer on a multifamily property that comes up for sale. For example, “Philadelphia passed a ‘People’s Preservation Package’ earlier this year which would give the city, tenants and affordable housing providers 45 days to make an offer on expiring federally subsidized housing before the property is offered to the market.”

In Lind’s opinion, “While nonprofits with specific needs will continue to build new tax credit subsidized affordable housing, city entities should focus on buying and preserving naturally occurring affordable housing when possible.”