May 19, 2022

On Monday, the Biden administration announced a plan to address high home prices and inflation and help close America’s housing supply shortfall of 1.5 million homes in five years. It includes leveraging existing federal funding, improving federal financing mechanisms, encouraging state and local zoning reforms, producing more manufactured housing, and boosting owner-occupied affordable housing.  

On Saturday, in a racist attack, a gunman shot and killed 10 Black residents in a grocery store on Buffalo’s East Side—one of the country’s most segregated metropolitan areas. The suspect said he targeted the store specifically because of the area’s high concentration of Black residents. This segregation is a direct result of deeply embedded systemic racism that continues to affect Black residents today.  

A new California initiative will help some residents find housing through their insurance plan. Under CalAIM, certain high-risk and Medi-Cal recipients with low incomes can use their plan to find affordable or subsidized housing or cash for housing deposits. “There is no medicine as powerful as housing,” said Margot Kushel, professor of medicine and director of the University of California, San Francisco’s Center for Vulnerable Populations. “And the health care system spends endless money and achieves poor outcomes because people don’t have access to housing.” 

Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) are popular among aging parents who wish to be near their families while maintaining their independence. The allure has only intensified as housing affordability worsens and housing supply drops. Although demand for ADUs is significant, local zoning restrictions can stand in the way of construction. “Ninety percent of the US has bad ADU regulation,” says Kol Peterson, the owner of Accessory Dwelling Strategies LLC in Portland, Oregon.