RESEARCH

Attention on Housing
Bipartisan Answers to the Housing Crisis

Emphasizing bipartisan solutions, a new book co-authored by the director of the Kennedy School-sponsored Joint Center for Housing Studies calls for a renewed focus on housing and government action to help those who struggle to afford housing.

Nicolas Retsinas MCP 1971, who also serves as a lecturer at the Kennedy School, teamed with Henry Cisneros MPA 1973 and Jack Kemp, two former secretaries of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Kent Colton, former CEO and executive vice president of the National Association of Home Builders, to produce Opportunity and Progress: A Bipartisan Platform for National Housing Policy. Their recommendations include funding for new units of affordable housing, enacting tax credits for low-income borrowers, expanding programs to facilitate employer-assisted housing, and legislating against predatory lending practices.

That the two Democrats and two Republicans forged agreement, says Retsinas, speaks to the possibility that lawmakers can too.

“We felt that fundamentally the issues were not partisan,” says Retsinas, former HUD assistant secretary for housing-federal housing commissioner during the Clinton administration. “They dealt with families, with communities, with the nation as a whole. It
was really pragmatism, not partisanship, that propelled us.”

The book, released shortly before the presidential election, calls attention to the importance of housing issues, largely neglected in the fall campaigns, he says.

“The irony about that forgotten issue is that for almost all American families, housing constitutes the biggest part of their budget,” he says. “And for people buying a home, it almost always is the largest single investment.”

Higher real estate prices, the changing structure of the economy, and the nature of the labor market have made home ownership more difficult for working families, according to Retsinas. The importance of giving them the opportunity for a suitable place to live, he says, is something everyone can agree on.

Opportunity and Progress: A Bipartisan Platform for National Housing Policy may be ordered at www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/governmentprograms/opportunity_and_progress.htm.