Affordable housing has fairly simple solutions on the surface – build more housing to push down prices, and/or provide people with an income sufficient to afford market rate housing. But it’s so difficult in practice in the United States, and from what I have seen, around the world. Curbed has a round-up of things being tried in the U.S., but I feel like these are tinkering around the edges of a large problem. I am leaning more and more toward the idea of providing people with an income (preferably by providing them with job skills, but by redistributing tax revenue of necessary) so that they can afford to choose among the options available.

• revolving loan funds to renovate vacant apartments
• bonus equity paid to low-income renters, sort of like reward points they can use for a down-payment on a home (this assumes owning is better than renting, which it might not be if all the twisted tax incentives, zoning restrictions and homeowner covenants were removed. In other words, saving is great but converting those savings to home equity is not automatically the best financial move for every family. In other words, maybe helping lower-income families to build financial assets they can use for whatever they need ultimately would be the best policy.)
• mixed use, green building and transit-friendly development – all great but I am not immediately clear how this helps create affordable housing, other than bumping up supply slowly and gradually
• non-profits and governments just straight-up renting homes and putting homeless people in them
• coordinated national housing policy (but this is in Canada, not the U.S.)