In America today, almost one-third of households are cost-burdened, meaning they spend one-third or more of their monthly income on rent/mortgage plus utilities. Nearly 1 in 6 households spend more than half of their monthly income on housing costs. Home prices in the U.S. have jumped an average of 47% since 2019. This is unsustainable.

This is a monumental crisis for families, communities and our nation — and it requires a new approach. There is an urgent need for all layers of government, the non-profit, and business sectors to rise to this moment and fully treat the housing crisis like the crisis it is.

That is why the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University and Accelerator for America (AFA) on Tuesday launched the National Housing Crisis Task Force, an ambitious, two-year project to bring the most promising innovations in housing production, preservation, and finance to communities across the country. Its first report will be delivered in November to inform the next Presidential Administration.

The bi-partisan Task Force is co-chaired by Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah, Mayor Justin Bibb of Cleveland, Mayor Andre Dickens of Atlanta, and Susan Thomas, President of the Fifth Third Community Development Corporation. It comprises 28 government, non-profit, and business leaders who will create a platform to share and replicate what’s working locally, nationally and internationally. Task Force members include Henry Cisneros, who served as HUD Secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Pam Patenaude, who served as Deputy HUD Secretary under President Donald Trump. The Task Force also includes a Mayors’ Implementation Committee, chaired by Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City and Kate Gallego of Phoenix.

"America’s housing crisis has reached a tipping point, and it’s no longer limited to the coasts. Communities across the country are experiencing a supply crunch, rising rents, and the loss of existing affordable housing. This task force will connect communities with proven and impactful solutions that they need to address these challenges,” said Co-Chair Andre Dickens, Mayor of Atlanta.

“Unfortunately, the federal government has offered few solutions: credit enhancements here, a blueprint there, but the real action is at the state and local level,” said Co-Chair Spencer J. Cox, Governor of Utah. “Cities and states are leading the way, and now we’re banding together to drive housing policy from the ground up.”

America’s housing crisis affects homeowners and renters across all income levels in cities nationwide. With a federalized, financialized, and fossilized system, states, localities, and private actors have taken the initiative with new housing development entities, housing trust funds, liberalized land use, permit expediting, and transit-oriented development. Housing providers, tenants, developers, and policy-makers are innovating new solutions to solve our toughest housing challenges. The National Housing Crisis Task Force unites these innovators, who will work collaboratively to:

Identify innovative local, state and private sector housing policies and practices – across land, construction, capital, regulation and delivery – that have the highest potential for transformative and lasting impact.
Produce a platform and roadmap for scaling and replicating these innovations across the U.S. housing ecosystem, resulting in new policies, programs, and products that produce and preserve housing across all income levels in every part of America.
Recommend changes to local, state and federal policies to deliver faster and better housing solutions at a lower cost across market-rate and subsidized-affordable housing developments.

Local innovations discussed by Task Force members at the launch include California’s sweeping land use reforms, replicable efforts to put public assets to work in cities like Atlanta, and ambitious plans to address homelessness in places like Houston. Task Force members also emphasized the need to address the housing issues of the whole country, including those in rural America, and communities who have been targeted and harmed by the housing policies of the past.

"The cliff that we find ourselves on with a shortage of housing options and limited pathways through those options results from decades of policy decisions. As with our climate crisis, action planning and implementation has already started with local governments big and small," said Co-Chair Justin Bibb, Mayor of Cleveland. "Quality, affordable housing and good neighborhood jobs within our transit corridors have the potential to revitalize long disinvested neighborhoods, but only if we can scale, simplify and deliver on local housing innovations happening throughout the nation. This Task Force can get us there."

“The solutions are out there, but they are being deployed in one community or another. We want to identify the best examples of innovative financing and land disposition tools, policies to streamline market-rate and subsidized-affordable housing development, and help replicate them in communities across the country,” said Co-Chair Susan E. Thomas, President of the Fifth Third Bank Community Development Corporation. “Fifth Third has worked in cooperation with many of these innovative local programs as part of our place-based Neighborhood Investment Program, which is pioneering a new way to do community development by building ecosystems to drive real change on the local level. We look forward to being part of the solution that elevates best practices from communities across the country.”

*Co-Chair Mayor Justin Bibb discusses how the Task Force can produce actionable recommendations that local and state leaders can implement with urgency.*

In order to meet its objectives, the Task Force will produce specific deliverables, including:

Housing Policy Innovations Report, highlighting what’s working and what’s not in the areas of land, construction, capital, regulation, and governance;
Innovative Housing Practice Toolkit that practitioners will use to scale and replicate innovations in policies, products and processes to spur real change in the housing sector;
Policy Agenda for the Next President and Congress, including concrete actions needed by federal and state governments to unlock local innovations; and
Mayors’ Implementation Committee, chaired by Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City and Kate Gallego of Phoenix, and including 15 Mayors from AFA’s Advisory Council.

In response to the growing affordability and access crisis, the Mayors’ Implementation committee serves a critical component of the Task Force, lifting up local solutions that work and ground testing new ideas in real time. As a “do tank” for America’s cities, AFA espouses a strong orientation toward action; the Committee will provide input on promising local practices and policy recommendations developed by the Task Force to ensure they are implementable, replicable, and likely to achieve their intended impacts. The Committee will also provide guidance on how to best communicate the recommendations to ensure they are well-received by policy makers and implementation partners. Most critically, the Committee will implement the policies recommended by the Task Force, serving as a testing ground to quickly identify which innovations are most promising and scalable.

“As far too many American families know, the housing crisis in cities and towns of all sizes is at a critical moment, and must be addressed at all levels of government without delay. Since becoming mayor, my administration has undertaken an urgent effort which has created or preserved thousands of units of affordable housing, and we have made historic progress on housing policy in Kansas City through the Tenants’ Bill of Rights, the Tenants’ Right to Counsel program, a ban on source of income discrimination, and the Housing Trust Fund. While we are proud of these efforts, we've got work still to do, and our collaboration with the National Housing Crisis Task Force will be vital as we leverage solutions from cities, states, experts, and private sector leaders from across the country so all Americans in all communities have access to dignified and affordable housing,” said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.

“As one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, Phoenix is on the front lines of our national housing crisis. The unfortunate reality is that the pain is being felt in our nation's largest cities and in some of our smallest communities, and the National Housing Crisis Task Force provides us with a forum to help each other. I’m excited to chair the Mayors’ Implementation Committee to bring new solutions to Phoenix and to share our successes with my fellow mayors,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego.

The National Housing Crisis Task Force will build on the existing work of AFA and the Nowak Metro Finance Lab, who have long been partners in developing actionable and innovative policies for local leaders to advance economic opportunity and address policy challenges.

“With the housing crisis so acute, localities are innovating new production and preservation tools,” said Accelerator for America President & CEO Mary Ellen Wiederwohl “We are committed to making sure cities, counties and states are working together to exchange solutions to collectively impact millions of Americans.”

“Cities, states, investors, developers, philanthropies, and others recognize that the housing crisis requires action, and are driving widespread innovations and novel solutions to the housing crisis. The Task Force will help achieve bottom-up change in a system that is federalized, financialized, and fossilized,” said Bruce Katz, Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab.

The Task Force is supported and staffed by the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University and Accelerator for America, under the leadership of Director Benjamin Preis, PhD, a Senior Research Fellow at the Nowak Metro Finance Lab.

The Task Force will share periodic updates and its schedule of exhibitions at https://nationalhousingcrisis.org.

*Mary Ellen Wiederwohl, Jennifer Ho, Josh Humphries, and Henry Cisneros.*

Full Task Force Membership is listed below:

Co-Chairs

Governor Spencer Cox, Utah
Mayor Justin Bibb, Cleveland
Mayor Andre Dickens, Atlanta
Susan Thomas, President, Fifth Third CDC

Members

Margaret Anadu, The Vistria Group
Chelsea Andrews, Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County
Richard Baron, McCormack Baron Salazar
Tony Bertoldi, CREA, LLC
Kenzie Bok, Boston Housing Authority
Laura N. Brunner, The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority
Lourdes M. Castro Ramírez, City of Los Angeles
Henry Cisneros, American Triple I
Cullum Clark, Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative
Alfonso Costa Jr., The Falcone Group
Rachel Diller, Bridge Investment Group
Frank Fernandez, Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta
Rebecca Foster, San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund
Ira Goldstein, Reinvestment Fund
Jennifer Ho, Minnesota Housing
Priya Jayachandran, National Housing Trust
Ben McAdams, Common Ground Institute
Duke McLarty, Groundwork
Marisa Novara, Chicago Community Trust
Pam Patenaude, Former United States Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Steven Paynter, Gensler
Esther Toporovsky, Community Sustainability Partners
RuthAnne Visnauskas, New York State Homes and Community Renewal
Senator Scott Wiener, California State Legislature

Ex Officio Members

Josh Humphries, City of Atlanta
Emily Collins, City of Cleveland
Steve Waldrip, State of Utah

Confronting Our Housing Crisis