Zoning

Brief

Increasing the affordability of rental housing

There are many approaches that cities, towns, and counties can use to increase the availability of affordable rental housing. In fact, the majority of policy tools in the Housing Policy Library work to advance this very goal. This brief describes how policies in each of the four main categories in the Housing Policy Library can be used to address rental affordability challenges.

Increasing access to sustainable homeownership

Local jurisdictions may want to provide assistance that helps low- and moderate-income households become homeowners, and enables existing owners to stay in their own homes, for several reasons. When buyers have access to safe and sustainable mortgage products, homeownership presents a way to accumulate savings which, along with any price appreciation can be the basis for passing wealth down to future generations. This brief describes several tactics for increasing such access.