Housing Policy Blog – The Center for Housing and Community Studies

Right to Counsel in Eviction Cases.

We’ll Need it After the Moratorium Runs Out. Two Charlotte city council members the other day floated the idea of adopting a right to counsel program for tenants facing eviction. That’s a milestone, and an indicator both of how serious the eviction crisis is about to get, and of how fast the right to counsel laws are catching on. The moratorium on evictions, which blocks landlords from evicting...

Zoning Reform Very Lite.

Accessory Dwelling Units Won’t Dent the Affordable Housing Crisis. ADUs are buzzy, they’re attractive, they’re problem solvers, they represent a zoning reform that might be achievable and might actually add some affordable housing units, and all without really having to challenge the prevailing order. But how much good it will really do in the end, is the subject of this post. A 2008 HUD publication...

Skin in the Game.

Biden Proposes a New First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit. It’s almost a fundamental American faith that people should own houses and that policymakers should encourage them to do so. Whether that is wise policy is a question to which we will return often in this housing policy series. Commentators have suggested that homebuying incentives jack up the price of houses, that home ownership is not actually...