The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, Community Development, and Fair Housing: A Response to Orfield et al.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Acknowledgements

The author is very grateful to Michael Bodaken, George Galster, Dan Immergluck, Marc Jahr, and Kirk McClure for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

Notes

1. My analysis is based on a larger definition of the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area than that used by Orfield et al. Whereas they focus on a seven-county region covered by the HousingLink data base of subsidized housing, my analysis is based on the Minnesota portion of the Minneapolis–St Paul-Bloomington Core Based Statistical Area. Although this larger geography encompasses more counties than Orfield et al.’s definition, it is only slightly larger in total households (1.3 million vs. 1.1 million in 2010).

2. This figure excludes 3,500 market-rate units that are part of some of the region’s LIHTC developments.

3. The 6,000-unit figure refers to the 5,600 units located in “Qualified Census Tracts”—tracts where at least 50% of all households have incomes below 60% of the area median family income.

4. Table 1 shows that more than half of Minneapolis’ and St. Paul’s LIHTC housing is located in Qualified Census Tracts, while the rest of the metro area has none. In the metro area as whole, 25% of all LIHTC units are situated in Qualified Census Tracts.

5. Michael Bodaken, Executive Director of the National Housing Trust, made this point in his presentation at a symposium in New York City sponsored by the New York Housing Conference on “Fair Housing: Impact on Affordable Housing Preservation and Development” (September 11, 2015).