Housing Flashcards, test questions and answers
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What is Housing?
in the USAHousing in the United States is a major issue that has been a hot-button topic for decades. As of 2020, there are an estimated 18.6 million households that are considered to be severely housing cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 50% of their income on housing costs. This has led to a growing crisis in the country, with many Americans being priced out of homeownership and struggling to find affordable rental options. The root causes of this crisis vary depending on the region, but some common contributing factors include limited access to credit, rising land prices and rent costs due to gentrification and displacement, lack of affordable construction material and labor costs due to changes in immigration policy, rising insurance premiums due to natural disasters such as hurricanes or floods, and inadequate public investment in housing subsidies or programs for low-income families. In response to this crisis, several initiatives have been put into place at both federal and local levels across the US. The most prominent example is arguably the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), which was enacted by Congress in 1986 as part of the Tax Reform Act. This program provides tax credits for developers who build rental housing units targeted at low-income households whose incomes do not exceed 80 percent of the area median income (AMI). The LIHTC program has been credited with helping create over 3 million housing units since its enactment, although it’s not clear if these units have had an effect on reducing overall housing costs or availability across America’s cities given its limited scope compared to other forms of federal assistance such as Section 8 vouchers or public housing developments.