housing development programs

Currently, there are a lot of people facing the difficulties and pressure of the affordable housing crisis. While it was already difficult for middle-income households to find safe and comfortable housing at an affordable rate since the turn of the century, the COVID-19 pandemic has made this issue even worse. 

People are moving to unsafe neighborhoods and outer fringes of the cities to find affordable housing. More often than not, these places aren’t safe and do not provide a good standard of living. In addition to that, it makes commuting to and from work more time-consuming and expensive. 

Workforce Housing

In order to fix the housing issues for middle-class citizens, an initiative known as workforce housing was introduced. This program targets middle-income earners such as teachers, healthcare employees, firefighters, police officers, etc. 

While the program is still struggling to find proper grounding, it has already helped a number of households find affordable housing that is safe and provides a certain standard of living. 

Workforce Housing Programs

There are mainly two workforce housing programs people can access: Housing Choice Vouchers and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). However, since there aren’t a few federal laws that regulate workforce housing programs at the moment, there could be more people working for this industry without being officially registered with either of these two programs. 

1. Housing Choice Vouchers Program

More commonly known as the Section 8 program, Housing Choice Voucher Program helps households with very low incomes to afford sanitary, safe, and decent housing. Housings are not limited to subsidized housing projects, apartments, townhouses, and single-family homes. 

Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) locally administrate the Housing Choice Voucher programs. After a family is issued a voucher, it is their responsibility to find a suitable housing unit where the owner agrees to rent the unit under the program. The PHA directly pays a housing subsidy to the landlord on behalf of the family. Afterwards, the family has to pay the difference between the amount subsidized by the programs and the actual rent of the unit. 

2. Low-Income Housing Tax Credit

First created in 1986, this is the biggest affordable housing program in the United States. Currently, there are an estimated 2,000,000 tax credit units, and the number sees growth of roughly 100,000 every year. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) administrates the program. 

Instead of providing housing subsidies, the LIHTC program provides tax incentives. The developers are encouraged to create affordable housing by having these incentives written into the Internal Revenue Code. Households earning between 60 to 120 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) are considered eligible for this program. However, additional factors need to be considered before evaluating if a family can get a house under this program. 

Maxwell Drever, a real estate manager, believes that these programs are one of the best ways to solve the economic crisis of the country. Not only do these help the people looking for affordable housing, but also benefit the people who are investing in such programs. 

By Anurag Rathod

Anurag Rathod is an Editor of Appclonescript.com, who is passionate for app-based startup solutions and on-demand business ideas. He believes in spreading tech trends. He is an avid reader and loves thinking out of the box to promote new technologies.