Mayors across a variety of American towns and cities have used the U.S. Conference of Mayors to voice concerns about their ability to address the dual crises of housing affordability and homelessness. As reported by Politico, specific struggles shared by mayors include attracting investors, housing density, and racial disparities.
“At the end of the day, as mayors, people aren’t looking to their senators to solve homelessness,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed told the conference in Washington, D.C. “They’re not looking to their state legislators to solve homelessness. They’re looking to their mayor.”
Meanwhile, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney warned that “parasitic” investors, who either undervalue or abandon properties, exclusively operate short-term rentals, flip homes, or price individual families out of the housing market, are having a detrimental impact across the city, including in low-income and historically Black areas.
For Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, whose city is struggling to deal with a recent influx of new residents, misaligned zoning codes are preventing the construction of higher-density housing. “We zoned our entire city for single-family dwellings, and it is destroying Albuquerque,” Keller told the conference. “It will hollow us out.”
In response, the city is considering converting old buildings, such as hotels and commercial structures, into condos or apartments. Other states, including Virginia, Washington, and Connecticut, have introduced laws designed to curb short-term rentals, protect tenants against unfair evictions, and fund loans for organizations to develop low-income housing.
In Los Angeles, meanwhile, Mayor Karen Bass recently announced a first round of reforms aimed at expediting the construction of affordable housing. Last month also saw New York City Mayor Eric Adams unveil a three-pronged development strategy to achieve an affordable housing goal of 500,000 new homes.
At a federal level, our editorial has recently reported on a number of initiatives designed to address the twin issues of housing affordability and homelessness, including The White House’s All In Initiative to tackle homelessness, HUD’s $365 million funding to prevent homeless encampments, and a range of measures by the Biden Administration designed to encourage affordable housing delivery.
However, Politico notes mayors at the conference expressing frustration that federal funds are not reaching local leaders directly and are instead being lost in wider state budgets. “A lot of us are frustrated,” Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie told the conference. “We need more funds to go directly to local government.”
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