Affordable Housing Vs. NIMBYism

Albuquerque's successful affordable housing program is failing thanks to NIMBYism and policies that drive down the value of apartments.

1 minute read

September 8, 2002, 7:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"The Affordable Housing Portfolio is elegantly simple. A city agency called Albuquerque Development Services buys apartment complexes on the open market from private owners. They then rent a quarter of those units to low-income families for 20 percent of their monthly income, subsidizing the balance of the rent from the "profit" they make by leasing all the other units at market rates. The rest of the "profit" goes toward retiring the bonds that financed the purchase.No federal money is involved. No ghettoization of the poor occurs."

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