When Affordable Housing Subsidies Still Leave People Priced Out

This is the kind of story regular people feel first and understand last. Public money goes into an affordable-housing program, but the apartments can still be out of reach for the people the program is supposed to help. ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting reported on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, a federal tax-credit system worth up to $15 billion a year nationally. Their reporting focused on Portland and found that publicly supported projects can produce apartments that are often no more affordable than market-rate housing. That does not automatically mean corruption. It does mean the public should be able to follow the money clearly: who receives the tax benefit, what affordability was promised, what rent levels resulted, and whether local oversight checked the outcome before more subsidies flowed. If a program is called affordable, everyday people should not need a spreadsheet and a lawyer to find out affordable for whom. Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/low-income-housing-tax-credit-portland