Our American States

While estimates vary, there is agreement that the U.S. is short several million homes. Many who study the housing situation in the U.S. have dubbed it a housing crisis.

Housing has usually been seen as a local issue, but as the housing affordability situation has worsened, states are increasingly involved in the search for solutions.

We asked three guests to join this podcast and share their perspectives.

First up is Arica Young, the associate director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Terwilliger Center for Housing. Young, who has decades of experience studying housing and community development, discusses how the crisis has hit renters and the substantial barriers to building multifamily housing in much of the country.

The other guests on this episode are Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a researcher at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, and Karl Eckhart, a vice president at the National Association of Home Builders.

All three guests point to the remarkably complex set of factors that affect housing, from zoning regulations to the price of steel and the shortage of electricians, plumbers and others in the trades.

Resources

• Getting Serious About Housing Supply Series, Bipartisan Policy Center
• Housing and Homelessness Database, NCSL
• How Manufactured Homes Can Build Housing Stability, NCSL
• Land Contract Regulation: Smoothing the Path to Homeownership, NCSL
• NMHC-NAHB Cost of Regulations Report (2022), National Multifamily Housing Council
• OAS Episode 162 Transcription
• “Opening Doors to Housing Security,” NCSL 2022 Legislative Summit
• Opening Doors to Housing Security, NCSL
• Which Metro Areas Are Seeing Rising Rents and Home Prices? All of Them, Bipartisan Policy Center