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Harvard Publication Addresses Homeownership Challenges
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From left, Retsinas, Kemp, Cisneros and Colton |
 Communities that adopt housing programs that take into account the entire housing continuum — supportive, public, rental housing and for-sale homes — will be better positioned to solve their homeownership challenges, according to a new publication by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
“Our Communities, Our Homes: Pathways to Housing and Homeownership in America’s Cities and States” presents a bipartisan and comprehensive approach for communities and states to end chronic homelessness, revitalize public housing, provide workforce housing and sustain homeownership.
The publication was written by Jack Kemp and Henry Cisneros, former secretaries of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, respectively; Nicolas P. Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies; and Kent Colton, senior scholar at the Joint Center and NAHB's former executive vice president. “Our Communities, Our Homes” is partially funded by the National Housing Endowment, the philanthropic arm of NAHB.
“The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and the National Housing Endowment have developed a fantastic relationship that has allowed both of our organizations to further study the growth and vitality of the housing industry,” said Gary Garczynski, endowment chairman and 2002 NAHB president. “With this book and our other initiatives with the Joint Center, a reasonable system of metrics and benchmarks has been developed to assist communities nationwide to provide affordable bridges to the American Dream.”
The study, which examined successful housing programs in cities across the country, said that communities and states should consider the continuum of housing when adapting housing programs, rather than considering each housing segment separately and unrelated to the others. Such a comprehensive approach, the authors say, takes into account how shortages in one area can negatively impact other areas and enables municipalities to adjust their programs accordingly.
While each city in the study approached its housing problems differently based on local needs, “Our Communities, Our Homes” indicates that successful programs should include:
- A leadership commitment to clear goals and deadlines
- A meaningful game plan based on hard data and guided input
- The pledge of a reliable revenue stream
- Partners organized to act in concert
- A bias for action and an eye for opportunity
“We hope that this book will change the way people think about housing and solving housing problems,” said Retsinas. “The lessons learned can be scaled to communities of all sizes and produce the same results. Decent and affordable housing can transform families, communities and our entire nation.”
“With the general slowdown in the housing market, there is an opportunity for cities and housing market participants to focus on achieving a better match between housing supply and buyer affordability,” said Colton. “The recommendations in this book should provide the framework to proceed, whether there is a market slowdown like now, or when the market becomes more robust.”
“Our Communities, Our Homes” is the second publication by this group of authors. Their first publication, “Opportunity and Progress: a Bipartisan Platform for National Housing Policy,” also sponsored by the endowment, was published in 2004 and focused on national housing policy reform.
To order a copy of “Our Communities, Our Homes” online, visit the Joint Center for Housing Studies at www.jchs.harvard.edu.
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