David A. Smith Author Archives

Catastrophe is both precondition for and stimulus of three things – sudden extinction, explosive innovation and enduring reform. As all three happen speedily, each vies with the other two for primacy.

Insufficient ventilation and insanitary surroundings reduce the vital resisting power of individuals exposed to such conditions; overcrowding causes closer contact with the infected individuals, and the absence of sunlight prevents the destruction of disease germs by nature’s principal disinfecting agent.

When Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) was launched eight years ago, the public housing world was encased in its own hard shell: HUD officials speaking at NAHRO or CLPHA conferences to explain and cheerlead for the program were greeted with skepticism and suspicion only a skosh short of hostility.

Two years into the era of Opportunity Zones, its impact on our industry has been minimal: whatever benefit the OZone may provide other types of real estate, it’s not boosting Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) production.

Though their business necessarily compels them to accommodate people during overnight stays, hospitals are the country’s least willing landlords, forced into the role by a to-them-toxic rapid evolution of healthcare laws, pharmacological potency, and one-way urbanization.

When it comes to housing innovation urgency, states are where the action is. Stories in this issue ably document what and how, and as a big-picture counterpoint, allow me to tell you why, and what that means for your state.

Unless Congress and the Administration extend it, the New Markets Tax Credit will die at year-end. While reprieve is likely, to paraphrase noted investment banker Dr. Samuel Johnson, nothing so concentrates the mind as the knowledge that one might be sunset.

A philosophical feud over the soul of affordability that has been ongoing for most of a century may have reached a turning point.

With the mid-September release of Treasury’s Housing Reform Plan, the administration has presented its exit strategy for GSE conservatorship, which may be summarized as ‘death sentence commuted, eligible for parole in a few years,’ and mapped out a strategy to do exactly that without legislation.

Thirty years ago, when I and others were inventing affordable housing preservation, it came in only two flavors (ELIHPA and LIHPRHA), just like Coke and Diet Coke.

In late June, to absolutely no press coverage, a Presidential executive order established the “White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing” with a pointed observation:

People Versus Places: The Definitive Argument