Upside down, looking in: the US from an Australian perspective
As you can see,
Jarrod Gitsham of Australia, who recently visited the US on a three-city, multi-agency study tour, has now completed his Hugh Stretton report for the Government of South Australia and the South Australian Housing Trust; the full report (5 meg .pdf) is now posted in AHI’s research library.
All reports are up-to-the-century timely!
As Jarrod’s report documents in great detail,
After providing snapshots of tax-exempt bonds (4.1.2, pages 43-44), LIHTCs (4.1.3, 45-46), HOME (4.2, pages 46-47), Housing Choice Vouchers (4.3, 48-49), and FHA insurance (49-50), Jarrod identifies six initiatives (pages 8-9) he thinks are promising for
- Inclusionary zoning, via Massachusetts Chapter 40B (5.1.1.1, pp 52-53).
- Soft second loans from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership (5.1.1.2, pp 54-56).
- Bargain-price access to municipal land, as used by
- Pre-development grants, similar to those provided by SONYMA, DHCR, and others under HOME, through
- Credit enhancement for first-time homebuyers, as in FHA insurance programs.
- Mutual self-help loans, as administered by Rural Housing Services (5.9.1.3, pg 86).
All of the summaries are cogent and readily comprehensible introductions to these topics.
Jarrod also provides a useful capsule extract of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s list of barriers to affordable home ownership (3.1.2, pages 15-16), and as I previously posted, a remarkable and revealing spatial analysis of population and inventory changes in metropolitan Adelaide over the last decade (3.1.4, pages 23-30).
Good on yer, Jarrod; good work.
The changing colors of
