July 15, 2021

The DC Council unanimously passed a plan on Tuesday to end pandemic-era protections over the next several months. Beginning October 12, landlords can evict tenants who have fallen behind on rent, but they must apply for Stay DC, the rent relief program funded by federal grants, at least 60 days before they move to evict tenants. Utilities companies must keep services running for tenants who owe less than $600, receive public benefits, or are on a payment plan, but they can resume shutting off water, gas, or electricity for others behind on rent.

A Jersey City affordable housing program that helped people with low incomes buy homes 20 years ago prevents residents from gaining the financial benefits if they sell today. The program stipulates that after 20 years, the residents can sell their homes at market price, but the seller can keep only a house’s “maximum restricted sale price”—the price it’d be if it were still affordable housing—plus 5 percent, while the city absorbs the bulk of the profit. Critics say the program is preventing homeowners from benefiting from the city’s hot housing market. “The model is not going to get people out of poverty,” said Venus Smith, a Jersey City realtor who has started a petition to end the program. “It’s actually plummeting them back into poverty in their senior years.”

With demand for affordable housing rising in Minneapolis, city officials are revisiting single room occupancy (SRO) housing, a housing model in which tenants rent a bedroom and share the bathroom and kitchen with other tenants. Otherwise known as rooming houses, these serve the lowest-income residents and as they provided one of the least expensive forms of non-subsidized rental housing. SROs were popular at the beginning of the 20th century, but many were demolished in 1970s and banned. Council members have coauthored an ordinance to make it easier to build SRO housing as a new affordable housing option. So far, they haven’t received much opposition.

The Bay Area needs to build about 50,000 units a year between 2023 and 2031 to keep pace with its population but restrictive zoning has hindered development. A new study explored how much the restrictions are costing residents. The researchers found the “zoning tax” (what they called the difference between the actual cost of land and the cost without restrictive zoning) for one-quarter acre of land was $409,000. This is four times the median household income, which can make securing a mortgage difficult even for those well above the median income and nearly impossible for residents with lower incomes. This, in turn, affects renters, who now must compete with residents with high incomes, who are driving up rent prices. “It’s a very bad place to be poor, [and] it’s not a particularly good place to be middle-class,” said the study’s lead author, Joseph Gyourko.