Scott Beyer Author Archives

In just two decades, “housing first” has turned from an academic idea into formal policy, becoming the default national strategy for curbing homelessness.

Missouri has been a robust state for tax credit construction, and the state-level Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) has been its largest such tax credit program.

New York City can be as rough, cost-wise, on developers as it is on average joes. For years, the city’s builders have complained that a mix of high property taxes, land values and regulatory costs makes it impossible to build workforce apartments.

President Trump enjoyed a major victory this past December on tax reform. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) ensures measures that have long been on the Republican agenda, by slashing corporate tax rates, reducing top personal income tax rates, and offering various deductions to middle-class families. It also reduces some deductions available to homebuyers.

If the downtown area of a major U.S. city is growing, there is little chance that it’s also providing affordable housing for all income groups.

Detroit, MI—This struggling city has a land mass of 138 square miles. And about dead-on 7.2 miles of it is certifiably “back.”

Those who follow housing policy already understand that there is a nationwide housing crisis. Various demographics in the U.S., faced with low wages and government regulations that make the commodity more expensive, cannot buy or rent the units they need.

Public housing has long been one of America’s top examples of government failure. From urban renewal, through the construction of high-rise ghettos, to demolition and rebuilding, the story has been about optimism and good intentions, followed by mismanagement and delay.

The public perception of New Market Tax Credits (NMTC) is that they are a federal program meant to revitalize urban areas. The credits have been used by community development entities to obtain financing that restores the vacant storefronts and aging business infrastructure of America’s inner cities. But more recently, NMTCs have actually been repurposed to favor non-metro America, defined as the counties that don’t have a core urban area of over 50,000, and are considered by the federal government to be “rural.”

Sometimes it can be hard to fathom that various American governing bodies are actually inflicting a housing crisis onto their people.

This September, a new building opened in Minneapolis that, while unspectacular, represents a prototype for the future of urban American development.

Denver, CO—Denver is not an old city, even by American standards. So compared, say, to Boston or Philadelphia, it doesn’t have an extensive footprint of historic buildings.