The Affordable Housing Crisis, We Could Have Avoided It

By Norman Franklin

Norman Franklin

There are many lessons we can draw from the affordable housing crisis. The most poignant lesson is that it could have been prevented if we had put aside our biases and focused on the problem.

More than fifty years ago, a plan was proposed to close the gap between need and inventory. As of 2024, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there is a 7.3- million-unit gap nationwide.

It’s a problem we knew would grow; it’s a problem that hardwired bias prevented the nation from fixing.

The 1960s was the most pivotal decade of the twentieth century. It laid bare the soul of America. It revealed systemic fissures in the social fabric; eruptions resulted from frustration with negligent social, economic, and government policies.

A study was commissioned to examine the cause of social unrest. The lack of affordable housing was a key focus of the report’s conclusions. A need for law and order was a mention.

The Kerner Commission report recommended building six million low- and moderate-income affordable housing units over the next five years. The report was issued in 1969.

In that the study was to examine the root causes of rioting in response to the assassination of Dr. M.L. King, it was viewed through the lens of social equality initiatives, an urban problem.

The recommendations were controversial, politically unpalatable, and socially unacceptable. America would have to acknowledge, there is a problem of systemic inequality.

Implementing the report recommendations would be cost prohibitive. Too costly for the government, too costly for suburban America.

“Big government” funding of quality-of-life improvements in urban America was a risky investment; integrating members of the marginalized populace into suburban America would be disruptive to the social order.

Progressives who publicly advocate social justice, social equality would have to live it. This reminds me of the scene in the classic film, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” when the Spencer Tracy character realizes that truth. S.O.B., he exclaimed when the startling reality hit home.

“Lock ‘em up,” and get government off the backs of the people.

Richard Nixon shifted the focus from abating the housing shortage to punitive measures of law and order. Reagan followed in the 80s to get “Big government” out of social reform, and equality for the people.

What was once relegated to an urban problem is now a nationwide crisis. It crosses the geographic boundaries of inner-city urban America, and doesn’t discriminate by race or ethnicity.

It’s peculiar how a mishandled problem lingers, metastasizes, and comes back as a weightier burden when you know to do the right thing but choose a more convenient patchwork.

If the political leaders, business and social leaders had the courage and social consciousness to do the right thing, the crises could have been avoided; the results would have been a phenomenal statement for the quality of life in a nation of government ‘of the people, with liberty and justice for all.”

Consistent construction of millions of affordable housing units would have mitigated the housing shortage. Policies to integrate housing would have substantially reduced the patterns of residential segregation that persists.

The expansion of rent supplement programs and the concomitant increase in the housing supply could have lowered the homelessness rates across the country.

Urban renewal and rehabilitation of decaying housing stock could have resulted in healthier living and reduced public health issue in many inner-city areas.

Affordable housing initiatives could have fostered greater economic mobility for low-income families, relieving housing cost burdens and allowing them to invest in education, health care and business opportunities. But we have an affordable housing gap of 7.3 million units. Social justice advocate, the late Bishop Desmond Tutu posits, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”