The lack of affordable senior housing in the United States is the focus of two separate efforts this week by advocates for the senior living industry, with both calling for the allocation of more federal resources to address the supply shortage.
The American Seniors Housing Association was part of a coalition of housing providers and lenders sending a letter to President Biden on Monday to oppose a national rent cap proposal. Meanwhile, in testimony before a congressional committee on Wednesday, LeadingAge prepared to call for an increased investment in federal programs that target households of the lowest income older adults.
In their letter to the president, ASHA and the coalition of housing providers and lenders said they wanted to work with the administration and Congress to address America’s housing affordability situation but that the affordable housing sector faces “serious obstacles” in addressing increasing housing costs and an insufficient supply of affordable housing. Rather than cap rents, the group suggested, the federal government should leverage its resources to build affordable housing for low- and moderate-income households and increase subsidies for renters.
ASHA President and CEO David Schless told McKnight’s Senior Living that ASHA has opposed rent control going back to its creation in 1991 by the National Multifamily Housing Council.
“The research has long suggested that rent control deters investment in housing,” Schless said. “What is needed are policies that stimulate the production of additional housing, including housing for older adults with limited resources.”
Calling rent caps a “quick fix” to stabilize rents, the coalition wrote that “arbitrary federal rent caps” are not the answer.
“Rent regulations jeopardize the financial solvency of rental communities, result in lower quality housing options for renters, and severely limit their housing choices,” the letter said. “Moreover, adding to what is already an overly complicated set of federal, state and local compliance responsibilities for housing providers will disincentivize housing investors, further exacerbating the supply shortage and making housing even less affordable for renters.”
The signers say they support voluntary programs, including the low-income housing tax credit, expansion of Section 8 programs, and other federal programs that provide financial resources to developers to create more affordable units. The lack of resources invested in those voluntary efforts, however, means that only one in four Americans in need of housing assistance receives it, resulting in a severe shortage of affordable housing options, they said.
“Rent control does not build a single home, and it ignores the real reasons for increases in housing costs, including rapidly rising insurance costs, state and local taxes, and other economic factors,” the letter read. “Implementing failed policies such as rent control will create instability in an already challenged market and undermine the important goals of fostering a healthy and equitable housing market, increasing supply, and creating successful communities where people of all backgrounds can build their lives.”
‘It’s not too late to act’
Meanwhile, in prepared remarks for a Wednesday House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance hearing made available on Tuesday, LeadingAge Senior Vice President of Policy and Advocacy Linda Couch detailed the US Department of Housing and Urban Development programs the association’s members take advantage of, including Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly. Outside of HUD’s programs, LeadingAge members also use the US Department of the Treasury’s Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program and the US Department of Agriculture’s multifamily programs to meet the needs for affordable senior housing, Couch said.
But Couch, who is scheduled to testify today, said that those programs are no match for existing and growing needs.
“After decades of federal retrenchment from sufficient and robust federal funding, federal housing programs meet the needs of only one of every three eligible older adult households,” Couch wrote in her remarks.
In the most recent Worst Case Housing Needs: 2023 Report to Congress, she said, HUD reported that 2.35 million older adult renter households with very low incomes spent more than half of their incomes on housing in 2021, a 60% increase since 2011 and a 130% increase since 1999.
Couch said that within six months of receiving the report, Congress “zeroed out” funding to build and operate new Section 202 homes, which exclusively serve the households noted in the report.
Using additional data from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University and the US Census Bureau, Couch wrote that housing cost burdens grow with age, and the lowest-income older adults spend less than their non-housing cost burdened peers on food and out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. Those lowest-income older adults also are more likely to leave their homes due to eviction, leading to increasing numbers of older adults facing homelessness.
“It is unconscionable for many older adults that, in their greatest time of need, the federal housing safety net is in such tatters,” Couch wrote, adding that the numbers will continue to grow as the population of older adults rapidly rises. “Congress has long been on notice about these existing and imminent needs; it is not too late to act.”
Couch said that LeadingAge urges Congress to preserve existing HUD, USDA rural housing service and low-income housing tax credit housing; expand the supply of affordable housing, including Section 202 housing; revive Section 202 capital advances and operating funds, authorize special purpose vouchers for older adults under the Housing Choice Voucher program; improve and expand low-income housing tax credits; and remove red tape and non-funding barriers to affordable housing.
