November 5, 2024
Never Let a Crisis End
New York City’s perennial housing crisis—the city has regularly declared a housing “emergency” since 1971—is back on the city council’s agenda, with two proposals to address it. On the surface, the two plans, one championed by Mayor Eric Adams, the other by City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, seem complementary; both promise more housing. But a…
October 15, 2024
Lefty NYC Council Add-Ons to Mayor’s ‘City of Yes’ Would Worse Housing Crisis
Eric Adams’ chance for a lasting legacy hinges on his ambitious zoning and housing proposal dubbed “City of Yes” — poised to come before the City Council next week. But as some community groups seek to derail the plan, the hard-left council looks ready to undermine it — and convert it to the “City of Yes, But.” The key to Adams’…
October 11, 2024
HUD’s Housing Misfire: When Bureaucrats Know Better than Markets
Kamala Harris’s proposal for a $40 billion fund for local governments to explore “innovative” housing solutions will likely funnel money into projects burdened by self-defeating government-mandated affordability requirements, which HUD loves but markets abhor. By further empowering federal bureaucrats, it will do more harm than good. The case in point is the Department of Housing…
October 10, 2024
Harris’s Housing Plan and the Five C’s That Will Derail It
Kamala Harris’s latest campaign ad pledges to “end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals.” However, her plan is unlikely to significantly increase the overall housing supply. The cornerstone of her proposal is an expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)—a program plagued by the Five Cs: Rather than expanding the LIHTC…
October 8, 2024
Harris Housing Subsidies: A Recipe for Repeating Past Mistakes
Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has proposed housing policies that recycle ineffective strategies long seen in federal housing programs. Her key proposals include subsidies for the construction of 3 million new housing units over four years and $100 billion in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers. Unfortunately, history tells us her plan would be worse than…
October 2, 2024
AOC’s “Social Housing” Dead End
New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an avatar of the progressive Left, recently shared her vision of how America’s housing shortage should be addressed in a New York Times op-ed cowritten with Senator Tina Smith of New Jersey. Ocasio-Cortez’s vision resurrects the debunked Great Depression-era argument that the private housing market is fundamentally flawed and must be replaced by…
September 25, 2024
The Promise — and Danger — of Kamala Harris’s YIMBYism
Vice President Kamala Harris is not wrong to emphasize that the best solution to our housing shortage is the construction of new homes. She’s actually enunciated something close to a program to do so: tax credits for small “starter” homes, as part of a push for 3 million new houses. It’s encouraging that the Democratic presidential candidate shows a basic knowledge…
September 23, 2024
The Kamala Harris Plan for More Housing Shortages
A signature feature of Kamala Harris’s housing plan is providing first-time home buyers with $25,000 in down-payment support, at a total cost of $100 billion over four years. Absent a severe recession, this policy is all but certain to lead to higher home prices. That’s because the four million program recipients would become price setters for…
September 20, 2024
How Public Housing Fueled Boston’s Busing Riots
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the North’s worst episode of school desegregation–related racial violence: Boston’s busing riots. Mobs hurled rocks at buses filled with black students newly assigned to South Boston High School, set on the “heights” of that largely white neighborhood. At the time, and in retrospect, the violence was blamed on…
September 11, 2024
As America’s housing crisis intensifies, the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act of 2024 has emerged as a high-profile yet expensive solution.
The bill comes with a $500 billion price tag and endorsements from leading Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris. Moody’s, a major financial services company, has also blessed the act, predicting it will lower rents and significantly boost the supply of affordable housing. But before the country embraces this rosy outlook, it must confront a stark reality: Government interventions in housing…