David A. Smith Author Archives

Short egocentric architect Frank Lloyd Wright must have hated tall people; his homes all have low ceilings. Similarly, transportation czar Robert Moses hated trucks; clearance under his stone bridges on New York State’s parkways goes as low as seven feet.

To the visitor from a land (U.S.A.) where a Greyhound bus terminal carries a proud plaque attesting to its pedigree, England abounds in spectacular historic, often ancient structures. Many are the nation’s treasures and wonders, sites lovingly maintained with public funds that bring past centuries alive.

While some revolutions are announced; others arrive with so little fanfare that by the time they seep into the public consciousness they’re all but inescapable. Such a revolution is quietly overtaking public housing: while the legacy program of HOPE VI remains on the books but zero-funded (except for occasional Choice Neighborhoods grants), the whole structure of public housing is being reinvented via HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD).

In the November 2012 issue of Tax Credit Advisor, I wrote about “the people niche,” and described affordable housing’s value proposition as plus – housing plus services as an integrated and coordinated ladder toward self-sufficiency or longer and healthier lives for seniors.

You will never hear such a story about a Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) property, because of a fundamental difference in program structure. In appropriated programs, an evil owner can use the residents as economic human shields; in LIHTC and similar investment tax credits, the owner cannot.

George Bailey, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, surveyed his agency’s FY 2013 portfolio-level report. Across the board, results were dismal. With HUD alone bearing the burden of financing the development, renovation, and preservation of the nation’s entire supply of affordable housing, costs were rising; scandals abounded; and banks, investors, and states were unwilling to help.

As Heraclitus said, all things change – including properties. Not only is perpetuity in affordable housing unattainable, questing for it can be harmful.

Death should always be mourned, the more so when that death is of a loved and valued one which happened slowly, through inattention. So it is with as-of-right zoning, an aspect of development that over roughly three decades has softly and suddenly vanished away, taking with it our control over affordable housing costs and our ability to execute a national housing policy – and raising preservation from afterthought to national imperative.

Sometimes a revolution happens not with a blare of trumpets but through a thousand small actions in the same direction. Without actually sensing movement, one suddenly realizes the world has become quite different than it was – and is never going back.

Throughout my career, my affordable housing colleagues and I have avoided all mention of the Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID). Whatever we might have thought about it privately, in public our lips were sealed.

A hundred years ago, it was unremarkable to be born at home, and to die at home. Fifty years ago, it was unremarkable for a doctor to make house calls, and the equipment he brought was nothing more than a mysterious black bag, a stethoscope, a tongue depressor, and hands as cold as if he kept them permanently in a freezer.