New Updates on The Edge

Featured Story

Message from PD&R Leadership:
The State of Housing
Since President Obama took office in January 2009, levels of new residential construction and housing prices have improved, while rental affordability has declined, and the homeownership rate has decreased, especially for underrepresented minorities. Richard Green, Senior Advisor on Housing Finance in the Office of Policy Development and Research, discusses some of the demographic and housing market trends that have contributed to the current state of housing in the United States.

In Practice:
RAD Program Recapitalizes Public Housing near St. Petersburg, Florida
The Landings at Cross Bayou, located in St. Petersburg, Florida, is a 184-unit Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program redevelopment of a Pinellas County Housing Authority property that had deteriorated and become functionally obsolete due to inadequate funding for capital improvements. The project is an instructive example of how public-private partnerships can effectively leverage the funding opportunities provided by the RAD program for low-income housing redevelopment.

Spotlight on PD&R Data:
Labor Market Trends in the Third Quarter of 2015
The latest Spotlight on PD&R Data from the U.S. Housing Market Conditions portal focuses on trends in the labor market for the third quarter of 2015, showing how the data vary across regions and how they compare to national trends.

Trending:
New Capital for Housing Preservation
In a market where declining public subsidies and increasing development costs have inhibited development of new affordable units, innovative financing approaches have emerged to preserve the affordability of existing subsidized and unsubsidized affordable properties. A new report from the Urban Land Institute Terwilliger Center for Housing analyzes three principal types of these creative financing approaches: real estate investment trusts, below-market debt funds, and private equity vehicles.

Policy Update:
Strategies for Regional Collaboration
The United States has a long history of regional thinking and collaboration. Traditional regional planning has focused largely on structural changes such as annexation and local government consolidation to address the challenges of providing public services. However, contemporary regional planning increasingly emphasizes forming cooperative relationships among local governments and stakeholders to collaborate on complex challenges unconstrained by political, geographical, and economic boundaries.