Public Policy

October 29, 2018

Secretary Ben Carson’s Plan for Affordable Housing

Ben Carson, the Republican Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to make housing affordable and he has a simple plan: cut unnecessary government regulation. In an interview in the Wall Street Journal, Carson said: “I want to encourage the development of mixed-income multifamily dwellings all over the place.”

At a gathering of public housing authority directors in Washington, D.C, Carson shared his diagnosis of the problem: “I want to take a closer look at the archaic local and state regulatory barriers—such as zoning and land use restrictions—that are preventing the construction of new mixed-income multifamily developments, whether in poor or wealthier neighborhoods.” The Wall Street Journal explains that Carson’s plan is “to tie HUD grants, which many communities use to build roads, sewers, bridges and other infrastructure projects, to less restrictive zoning.” In Carson’s words, he would “incentivize people who really would like to get a nice juicy government grant” to make their zoning less regulated, allowing for more development.

For Ben Carson, the increasingly bipartisan effort to deregulate development is about rejecting ideology and operating with common sense. In the WSJ interview, he explains: “The last administration, when they put this together they really went down an ideological pathway. We are going to look at the people who are actually affected, what are they saying, what will be helpful to them.”

Ben Carson’s proposal is similar to that of senators across the aisle, including Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren. Like Carson, Booker believes that “exclusionary zoning feeds the affordable housing crisis” because “restrictive zoning laws drive up prices by artificially restricting the supply of housing.” And also just like Carson’s proposed remedy which relies on better incentives, Booker’s solution is that “states, cities and counties receiving funding under the $3.3 billion federal Community Development Block Grant program for public infrastructure and housing would be required to develop strategies to reduce barriers to housing development and increase the supply of housing” which could include plans to authorize “high density and multifamily zoning and relaxing lot size restrictions.” Booker’s proposal would also encourage governments to “reduce restrictions on lot sizes and allow the construction of multifamily units” and “reduce parking requirements and restrictions on accessory dwelling units,” allowing by-right development for projects meeting local zoning requirements. Similarly, The Atlantic reports that Elizabeth Warren’s proposed bill “creates a competitive block grant program” to encourage deregulation. Under this plan, “the grant money could be spent flexibly—on schools or parks, for example—and is intended to appeal to suburban communities with stricter zoning laws. Those communities can only access grants if they reexamine and redress their land restrictions.”

I’ve written about the need for deregulation and zoning reform. In an interview with my local paper, I observed that “the market tells us that people want more options” and argued that we should “remove some of the government regulations and let people choose what they do with their own properties.” I recently wrote an in-depth post on how Accessory Dwelling Units are a great way to provide affordable housing.

October 24, 2018

The Case for Accessory Dwelling Units

Accessory Dwelling Units have gotten a lot of publicity in recent years, due in large part to the Tiny Houses movement. Often valued for their trendiness and novelty, ADUs are becoming an important alternative to standard housing. And while Tiny Houses are one form of ADUs, they are not the only or even the most important one. Common models for ADUs include turning a basement or garage into a fully furnished apartment or building a cottage in a spacious backyard. ADUs allow renters to find more affordable housing options and allow homeowners to generate additional revenue by charging rent.

One significant reason that ADUs have become more popular is that demographic shifts have created a market demand for multi-generational housing. Pew Research Center reports that as of 2016, 1-in-5 Americans live in a multi-generational home, for a record-setting number of 16million people. This report notes that “the number and share of Americans living in these households increased sharply during and immediately after the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Since then, growth has slowed a little but has remained much more rapid than the growth before the recession.” An especially dramatic finding of this report is that “young adults have been the age group most likely to live in multigenerational households” whereas previously it was adults age 85 or older. Pew found that “among 25- to 29-year-olds in 2016, 33% were residents of such households.” Even more strikingly, “among a broader group of young adults, those ages 18 to 34, living with parents surpassed other living arrangements in 2014 for the first time in more than 130 years.”

Another important reason that more attention is being paid to ADUs is that our economic situation in the United States presents us with some challenges. Here’s a quick snapshot of where we are as a nation: affordable housing is increasingly hard to find in some locations; the Boomers are retiring without adequate savings; public funding is being stretched as the workforce producing tax revenue shrinks, and all the while a new generation of school children are in need of education funding. It’s worth exploring this impending crisis in more detail.

A Nationwide Housing Crisis:

You’ve likely seen headlines like these: “A minimum-wage worker can’t afford a 2-bedroom apartment anywhere in the U.S., report finds.” The report in question, Out of Reach 2018, was published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and it has generated a lot of buzz in local and national newspapers. The report details how across the United States “renters with the lowest incomes face the greatest challenge in finding affordable housing.” (To read my analysis of the housing crisis in Lancaster County, click here.)

An article in Curbed.com explains that this lack of affordable housing is leading to less geographic mobility, less creation of new businesses, an increasing concentration of wealth and opportunities in a select few regions of the country, and an increasing burden on young adults attempting to begin their adult life. In other words, the affordable housing crisis functions as a vicious cycle of cause and symptom in a broader economic emergency.

Boomers are Retiring, The Workforce is Shrinking, and the K-12 Population is Expanding:

The Boomers are retiring, but they are worse off financially than the previous generation, a phenomenon that upends recent history and recalls the days of the Truman presidency. The Wall Street Journal reports that “more than 40% of households headed by people aged 55 through 70 lack sufficient resources to maintain their living standard in retirement.” That 40% designates approximately 15 million American households. At the same time, there is a dearth of working-age adults to support the entitlement programs (Social Security and the like) to support the retiring Boomers.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, sobering analysis from the Foundation for Excellence in Education details how this surge in retirement is dovetailing with an uptick in the K-12 population, portending fierce funding battles between retirees and school districts at the local, state, and federal levels. The boomers are retiring, many of them don’t have the financial resources to support themselves in their retirement, and there simply won’t be enough public funding to address the shortfalls.

Given both the demographic changes and the economic challenges, the market demand for ADUs will likely continue to increase. This article explores the benefits of ADUs and the obstacles preventing their development and argues for why we should promote ADUs as a viable housing option.

The Benefits:

The White House toolkit on ADUs explores several broad economic benefits from ADU development including:

Housing regulation that allows supply to respond elastically to demand helps cities protect homeowners and home values while maintaining housing affordability.
Regions are better able to compete in the contemporary economy when their housing
development is allowed to meet local needs.
Smart housing regulation optimizes transportation system use, reduces commute times, and increases use of public transit, biking and walking.
Modern approaches to zoning can also reduce economic and racial segregation.

In addition to these macro-scale benefits, ADUs are beneficial to everyday homeowners and renters. These benefits include the following:

Homeowners can:
- provide aging adults with living space that is nearby but that still maintains the standard of independence they have grown accustomed to.
- provide their adult children with a living arrangement that allows them to experience independence and autonomy without crippling them financially.
- increase equity in their property and generate additional income by renting to non-related individuals and families.
Renters can:
- Choose housing that meets their changing needs; smaller households, increased housing cost, availability of work
- Choose environmentally friendly housing options with a smaller average space per person and a lighter ecological impact.
- Find affordable housing, including rent that is at below-market rates.
- Have the opportunity to interact with neighbors that they might not otherwise have regular contact with, for example, if the homeowner is a family, an older couple, etc..

In addition to the quantifiable economic advantages of ADUs listed above, there are important qualitative benefits as well. For example, I am a huge advocate for inter-generational learning: I think that grandparents and older adults have a lot they can teach younger generations, and also a lot they can learn from them. ADUs can allow multiple generations to live and close proximity with each other, facilitating opportunities to bond and to learn from and with each other. (Check out my blog series on intergenerational learning.)

The Obstacles:

In Coppage’s report which I cited earlier, he lists a number of obstacles that hinder the creation and use of ADUs. These obstacles include:

Structural regulations (including parking space requirements)
Size regulations
City service fees and regulations, including for extending utility services like electricity
Local government barriers, including prohibitions on kitchen facilities
Occupancy restrictions, whether mandating owner occupancy or prescribing who or who cannot rent a unit.

Conclusion:

At a time when our nation faces severe economic challenges and a dire housing crisis, support for ADU development is blossoming into a bipartisan cause. States like California and cities like Portland and Seattle are already seeing the benefits of removing outdated zoning law and overbearing regulation. As I stated in an interview with Lancaster Online, “the market tells us that people want more options. When demand goes up, people could monetize empty space on their property. Let’s remove some of the government regulations and let people choose what they do with their own properties.”

The future of ADUs in America looks promising. ADUs can aid multigenerational families, provide affordable rates to renters, and let homeowners leverage their biggest asset for revenue. By working together on the local and state level, we can build more flexible housing markets, more diverse communities, and a more resilient American economy.

Recommended Resources:

Jonathan Coppage’s report for R Street: link
The Urban Land Institute’s case study exploring ADUs in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver: link
The White House ADU toolkit: link
The City of Santa Cruz’s extensive ADU How-To Manual: link

October 5, 2018

Reconnecting Democracy: #LongRead

Is Democracy Dying?

Democracy has developed into a cornerstone of Western Civilization, providing the basis for our political systems, our views of human rights, and the way in which we organize our businesses, our schools, and our homes in society. A paper published in The Journal of Democracy shares global research that indicates that dedication to and support of democracy is beginning to wane — even in the West. The report shows, for example, that in the United States, less than one-third of millennials—defined as people born since 1980— say that democracy is an essential factor for them for choosing where they would want to live. ” Worse still, the paper reports that there is growing opposition among young people to democracy. “In 2011, 24 percent of U.S. millennials (then in their late teens or early twenties) considered democracy to be a “bad” or “very bad” way of running the country. Although this trend was somewhat more moderate in Europe, it was nonetheless significant: In 2011, 13 percent of European youth (aged 16 to 24) expressed such a view, up from 8 percent among the same age group in the mid-1990s.”

In lieu of democracy, more and more Westerners are considering authoritarianism as recourse to the ills of civil society. “35 percent of wealthy young Americans say it would be “a ‘good’ thing for the army to take over” the nation. The paper summarizes that young people have become “more cynical about the value of democracy as a political system, less hopeful that anything they do might influence public policy, and more willing to express support for authoritarian alternatives.”

Generational Politics

One reason youth might be less committed to democracy is that they are not participating in democracy as much as they used to. Jon Grinspan, writing for The Atlantic, has a startling thesis regarding why youth are less politically engaged than before. Our youth are increasingly disengaged in the political processes and institutions that help shape civic society, he says, precisely because we have separated them as a demographic from older generations. In an article entitled “How ‘Millennials’ Ruined Democracy” (millennials designating the term and all it stands for, not the actual people), Grinspan recalls how historically, political engagement in the 19th century was so high because youth were not siphoned off from older siblings, parents, and other local adults in their formation.

Grinspan writes that “America’s institutions forced generations to mingle. In one-room schoolhouses, 8-year-old boys and 14-year-old girls overheard 20-something students hollering partisan slogans. Such mixing wrote an Illinois schoolteacher in 1860, proved “the genius of a republican government in which every member, male and female, large or small, feels a keen, personal interest.” Grinspan also notes that cultivation of engaged citizenry began at home. He writes of how “Susan Bradford, a 14-year-old Florida belle, filled her diary with tales of the multi-generational debates that shook her family’s dinner table in the 1860 election. Even her 9-year-old cousin Mattie, a budding young Whig, “shakes her golden curls and turns up her pretty little nose” in protest when her relatives sang Democratic songs.”

At the turn of the century, generations began to be divided and young people increasingly found companionship primarily circles of their peers. Grinspan notes that “By 1909, the reformer Jane Addams worried that democracy “no longer stirs the blood of the American youth.” She argued that “never before have the pleasures of the young and mature become so definitely separated,” stifling the sense of a shared interest in public life.” This trend continued and has followed us into our 21st-century context: consider, for example, how major marketing and advertising segments by age rather than marketing to the whole family as it used to do. Grinspan says the problem with generationally-divided politics is that “young people grow up.” He writes:

“This is what makes winning their votes so difficult, and so unlike appealing to other demographics. There is little time to build networks, develop ideologies, or select leaders. With so much turnover, once a young generation gets organized politically, it’s not young anymore.”

And once that generation, which organized itself politically, grows up, it is immediately out-of-touch and not in connection with the next generation which attempts to mobilize, and on and on this process goes.

Grinspan notes that “generations do play an important role in American politics, giving diverse groups something to unite around. But that strength is also a weakness: uniting a generation often means isolating it, bottling up its knowledge and excitement. In politics, and in the rest of life, age mixing has a power that is often neglected in this segmented, modern world—a power that once made schoolyards brawls and dinner-table debates the centerpieces of American democracy.” In light of this, he advises us to “forget generations” and to “stop chattering about millennials” because “blurring those age-based divisions will only help make American democracy more sustainable.”

Reviving Democracy Through Parental Engagement

In Grinspan article for The Atlantic, he notes how the home used to be an incubator for democratic values. I think he’s right — civic engagement begins at home with parental engagement. In 2014, I wrote a series of blog posts on parental engagement in civic engagement. My first post shares research on why voting is important (and effective), particularly in local elections and in the second post, I share memories about going to vote with my parents, which were formative experiences for me. The third post examines the 2008 election of President Obama and, in keeping with Grinspan’s thesis, shares 2010 findings from Pew Research on how “the political enthusiasms of Millennials have since cooled – Obama and his message of change, for the Democratic Party and, quite possibly, for politics itself. Finally, in my fourth post, I discuss Tocqueville’s vision for civic life.

I staunchly believe as Tocqueville stated that “municipal institutions constitute the strength of free nations. Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a free government, but without municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.” – (Chapter V) Here are three quick tips for parents in nurturing the kind of civic engagement that can teach the next generation to cherish democracy and work within democracy for the common good.

1. True and lasting change begins slowly, often imperceptibly, and on a very small level. If you focus on being a supportive spouse, an engaged parent, a dependable worker, and an upstanding member of the community, you’ll be sending ripples through the pond and will be helping make America a better place.

2. Seize opportunities to be active and engaged: vote in local, not just presidential, elections; participate in community food and clothing drives; find out how you can get involved mentoring youth through programs like Big Brother Big Sister.

3. Encourage your children to be active in their community. Help them learn to be good leaders and provide opportunities for them to be involved in community service. Consider things like volunteer work, community theater, church or school outreach projects, etc.

Conclusion

Ronald Reagan once said that freedom is only a generation away from extinction. He understood that sustaining democracy is a continual work and that our civic society is both precious and fragile. Saving democracy isn’t the sole task of one man or one woman but it is a task that we all share. Healing the wounds of our civil society begins on the local level in the communities in which we live and work. Most importantly, learning how to sustain our civic project begins with the family and in the home.

September 24, 2018

Paid Leave: Good for Family, Good For Enterprise

Families are the building block of civil society. Businesses are also an integral foundation of civil society. Paid family leave policy is important because it impacts families and businesses. Our society is ready for a practical blueprints that give families access to better leave policies while also enabling businesses to do the good they are often afraid to do.

We recognize that family leave is good for families:

A study published in The Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economic found that maternity leave led to women reporting fewer depressive symptoms, reduction in severe depression and overall improvement of mental health. (source)
A study from Columbia University found that fathers who take two or more weeks off are more active in their child’s care nine months later. (source)
A study from the National Institutes of Health found that paid parental leave can reduce infant mortality by as much as 10%. (source)

We recognize that family leave is also good for business:

Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of Youtube, reported that when Google increased their paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, their retention rate of new mothers increased by 50%. Wojcicki said: “Mothers were able to take the time they needed to bond with their babies and return to their jobs feeling confident and ready. And it’s much better for Google’s bottom line — to avoid costly turnover, and to retain the valued expertise, skills, and perspective of our employees who are mothers.” (source)
In California, a state with an implemented paid leave policy, 90% of businesses surveyed said the policy either had a positive effect on productivity or no noticeable effect (meaning no harm.) (source)
At Demme Learning, We offer 8 weeks of fully paid parental leave. We have found through company surveys that this policy helps boost morale and we have also seen how this policy helps to retain our employees.

Paid leave policies cost money which can make it prohibitive to business implementation, especially for smaller businesses. Often businesses are afraid that they can’t afford to implement such policies even though they might want to. In light of this, how might the government help the private sector do the good they want to do?

Senator Marco Rubio recently rolled out a Federal parental leave plan that shifts future Social Security Benefits to pay for parental leave.

From TheHill.com,

Under Rubio’s bill, which he introduced this week, a new parent that elects to participate would receive an amount equal to three months of what they’d get in Social Security benefits. Households that receive the benefit can use it however they want as long as they take at least two months of leave, and spouses in two-parent households would be able to transfer the benefits to each other, according to Rubio’s office.

Rubio’s office said that most parents making below the median family income of about $70,000 would be able to have the benefit cover more than 70 percent of their wages for two months, and that many parents on the lower end of the income spectrum would be able to use the benefit amount to help finance longer-term parental leave.

I like what Senator Rubio is trying to accomplish but ideally, the most effective initiatives will be found at the state level and with individual businesses. For example, Pennsylvania could adopt an incentive plan that gives tax credits to employers that provide paid leave policies. A similar concept was included in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, for a federal tax credit for employers who provide paid family and medical leave.

The Society for Human Resource Management reported,

Under new Section 45S of the Internal Revenue Code, employers that voluntarily offer qualifying employees up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave annually under a written policy may claim a tax credit for a portion of the wages paid during that leave.

To receive the credit, employers will have to provide at least two weeks of leave and compensate their workers a minimum of 50 percent of their regular earnings. The tax credit will range from 12.5 percent to 25 percent of the cost of each hour of paid leave, depending on how much of a worker’s regular earnings the benefit replaces. The government will cover 12.5 percent of the benefit’s costs if workers receive half of their regular earnings, rising incrementally up to 25 percent if workers receive their entire regular earnings.

It will be interesting to see how this issue continues to evolve as we move through the midterms and into the 116th Congress.

April 19, 2018

Gentrification is Anti-Family

When you think of a vibrant city, what kinds of people do you envision? The artsy hipster barista? The forty-something entrepreneur dressed in jeans? The fashionable women in high heels enjoying rosé in an outdoor canopy cafe? Now try to picture another demographic living in the city: a family.

As a general rule, cities aren’t designed (or redesigned) to accommodate the needs and desires of families. A series on cities from The American Conservative describes how more and more cities are being transformed into what the industry refers to as the Vibrant Urban Neighborhood. “The VUN—with its standard-issue bike shops and vintage clothiers, its “authentic” live-work spaces and dive bars, its predictable purveyors of vinyl records and locally-sourced foodstuffs, its de rigueur venues for generically hip “live music,” its uniform throngs of overwhelmingly unmarried and childless active or aspiring knowledge workers ritualistically intoning the shibboleth of “diversity”—has metastasized from those erstwhile white-hot centers of hipness—Williamsburg, the Mission, Wicker Park, Silverlake—converting Bell Town and Bushwick, Echo Park, Seward, and the Pearl District, transforming D.C.’s H Street Corridor, LA’s Highland Park, and dozens of other districts.” (source) This approach to city development is eager to attract young working professionals but doesn’t plan for how these working professionals can “remain in our cities as they age, change, or grow.” (source)

A city made or remade to accommodate young adults doesn’t require good schools. It doesn’t need to provide a diversity of housing options beyond the studio and one-bedroom apartments. Affordable eating options aren’t really on the radar and neither are playgrounds. In short, a city not built to accommodate families won’t be able to accommodate families.

Even worse for families is the process of gentrification. Indeed, gentrification is inherently anti-family. When a city undergoes this process of becoming the kind of place that attracts young, childless urbanites, it raises rent prices, often resulting in driving out poorer families that can no longer afford to reside in the city or at least forcing them to allocate more of their income to basic housing.

As we seek to revitalize and develop our cities, we must remember our obligations to the family. Being consistently pro-life means promoting the flourishing of all people of all demographics.

Secretary Ben Carson’s Plan for Affordable Housing

The Case for Accessory Dwelling Units

Reconnecting Democracy: #LongRead

Paid Leave: Good for Family, Good For Enterprise

Gentrification is Anti-Family

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