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This is the outlook presented by the latest edition of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies report, entitled, Housing America’s Older Adults 2019. And it represents one of the greatest challenges facing the entire affordable housing enterprise. The first question, then, in any discussion of senior housing and services is: Are we meeting the demand?

2020 has been a brutal year for urban America. New York City, since bearing the brunt of the early COVID-19 impacts, has suffered steep drops in business activity.

The federal role in providing affordable housing takes various forms, but is mainly focused on subsidies or underwriting for private sector housing. Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprise that purchases mortgage shares and pools them for resale as security investments, is a major conduit for this. In September, the corporation announced a new Social Impact Bond (SIB) product that focuses on multifamily properties, using the proceeds from loans to finance affordable housing.

On April 29, 2016, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation designating May 2016 as Older Americans month. Shortly thereafter, the White House held a meeting with affordable housing and senior advocates to celebrate the proclamation and consider what else the Obama administration could do to make housing more affordable for seniors.

Before the emergence of the Coronavirus advocates for the federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit, known as the Historic Tax Credit (HTC), were seeking several important legislative changes. HTC developments, like many other construction-related tax credits, have struggled during COVID-19 due to statutory and regulatory deadlines, decreased investor appetite and construction delays, adding new reforms to the wish list and making others now more important than ever.

Conservatives often find themselves with two conflicting impulses on housing. They support open markets and property rights and are thus sympathetic to the cause of weakening zoning laws and encouraging construction of different building types.

Barack Obama famously told House Republicans in 2009 that “elections have consequences.”  While we do not know what the results will be once the polls close on November 3 (or even when we will know who actually won) we do know that this particular election will be very consequential.

In response to the myriad of presidential tweets, op-eds and administration actions, we thought it was time to set the record straight on fair housing. The duty to affirmatively further fair housing was enshrined into law in the landmark Fair Housing Act of 1968. We, as a country and as a government, have yet to live up to the ideals of that law’s provision, despite our unchanged obligation to do so.

Since the 1930s, nearly all cities and towns have implemented some form of zoning to separate uses. Retail is put apart from housing, which is put apart from offices, and so on.

Any business or industry as affected by government regulation and legislative decision-making as affordable housing has a vested interest in engaging elected officials and encouraging its constituent voters to exercise their rights.

This is the motivating statement behind former Vice President Joe Biden’s housing policy plan, and he has made clear that it is a central and essential part of his presidential candidate platform.

One major difference between the current recession and the one that occurred a decade ago is that major depository institutions are financially stable and providing much needed capital to the communities they serve.