What is affordable housing?
Does It Really Exist? Where can I find it? By Donna Rose While affordable housing typically requires a household’s income be less than a certain income, some affordable housing also requires a minimum income. Many people think they know what affordable housing is. You hear people talking with responses like: “It’s that stuff they build for poor people” “Its apartments for people on welfare” “It’s the kind of housing they are trying to ruin our town with”. However these answers could not be further from the truth and the truth is affordable housing can be any kind of housing built for anybody. What makes it “affordable” is its cost relationship to the income of its owner/resident. There is no special kind of housing that is built because by its very nature it is affordable. However on the other hand when a community zones a tract of land for 5 and ten acre building lots with 3500 square feet minimum house requirements by its very size and volume the cost of such housing will be unafford
“Affordable housing” is a broad term usually used to describe decent, safe housing which is affordable for individuals who, generally, earn less than 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI). These properties almost always benefit from some sort of Federal, state or private subsidies to keep the cost of providing housing low enough to remain affordable.
