The pandemic has spotlighted the nation’s shortage of affordable housing, which is especially severe in New Jersey. Dennis Shea is head of the Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy in Washington DC. He said in New Jersey it’s just a simple case of supply and demand.
“One of the causes is there’s a supply shortage of affordable rentals and affordable starter homes, so we’ve underbuilt housing in New Jersey, according to my statistics, 137,000 underproduction of homes to meet the demand that’s out there, and that’s why the prices have gone up,” he said, adding that there simply has not been enough affordable housing built in the past 15 years, since the 2008 financial crisis.
Shea says home prices in New Jersey have gone up 13% in the last year and rents have risen even more.
The Center wants to see Congress expand the use of tax credits to builders.
“We propose to increase federal support for something called the low-income housing tax credit, which incentivizes private investment in affordable rental homes, it’s been a program that’s been very successful over the past 36 years,” said Shea.
He said people want to see this problem solved.
“We recently did a poll with Morning Consult polling firm which showed that a strong majority of Americans, 71%, want to see bipartisan legislation to grow the supply of homes and improve housing affordability, and for Congress to make that a priority,” Shea said.