3/16/25

By Aditi Jha

Affordable housing has become a very relevant issue with President Donald Trump's recent executive order promising to lower the cost of housing and his recent budget cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The origins of affordable housing issues can be traced back to redlining and the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), a 1933 government agency that came out of the New Deal. The HOLC denied loans and access to credit for Black people who wanted to move into predominantly white neighborhoods, enforcing residential segregation. They then color-coded neighborhoods in order for lenders to know where property values were likely to fall, marking Black neighborhoods in red due to racist biases that regardless of residents’ financial stability, the property values would never increase or be retained solely due to the neighborhood’s racial makeup. Because redlined neighborhoods were designated undesirable for investors in maps used by public and private lenders, they received much less public and private funding than white neighborhoods, leading to the deterioration of those neighborhoods’ infrastructure, utilities, schools, environment, and transportation. Residents also couldn’t apply for loans to start up businesses or invest in recreational spaces, healthcare facilities, property renovation, and more. Even though it was outlawed in the 1968 Fair Housing Act, redlining led to generational poverty, health issues, and more disadvantages, specifically for people of color. When wealthy people and investors see potential in an underdeveloped, often historically redlined neighborhood and begin renovating and investing in the area, it usually results in higher property values and rent prices in what's called "gentrification." Property tax increases and rent hikes can push out residents who have lived there for generations, removing their affordable housing and pushing them to areas that might be further away from jobs or cities. Redlining prevented families of color from homeownership and building wealth, also keeping them from home loans and mortgages so they couldn't accumulate assets over time. This wealth gap has made it harder for those communities to afford housing today. The cost of living is generally a bipartisan issue. Policies have been passed such as inclusionary zoning laws, rent control, the construction of more affordable housing units in mixed-income areas, and more. Trump's executive order on affordable housing, passed January 20, seeks to "deliver emergency price relief,... lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply; eliminate unnecessary administrative expenses and rent-seeking practices that increase healthcare costs; eliminate counterproductive requirements that raise the costs of home appliances; create employment opportunities for American workers, including drawing discouraged workers into the labor force; and eliminate harmful, coercive “climate” policies that increase the costs of food and fuel." That being said, his Department of Government Efficiency plans on laying off 50% of HUD staff and cutting $168 million from their Homeless Assistance Grants program and $3.29 billion from their Community Development Fund. “The programs that affect low-income people are the most vulnerable because low-income people have the least clout in the political system. So that’s what I’m worried about,” Michael Kane, chair Leaders and Organizers for Tenant Empowerment Network told Shelterforce, a publication focused on affordable housing. “[Legislators are] under tremendous pressure to pay for tax cuts to the rich and increase funding to the Pentagon unnecessarily. They would have to cut discretionary programs for poor people, and they would have to go for entitlements like Medicaid, Medicare, and ultimately, Social Security.”

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