Our Homes: Ending the Housing Crisis

Senator Chang hosted Professors Justin Tyndall and Limin Fang from UHERO for a data-driven discussion on Hawaiʻi’s housing supply challenges and policy solutions.Professors Tyndall and Fang’s working paper, “The Downmarket Impact of New Multifamily Housing: Evidence from a Honolulu Condo Tower,” highlighted the importance of building new multifamily housing. Their research shows that when new housing is developed, it creates vacancies that open up opportunities for families and individuals seeking more affordable options. In short, increasing housing supply expands opportunities for local residents to rent or purchase both new and existing homes. Link to study: https://uhero.hawaii.edu/the-downmarket-impact-of-new-multifamily-housing-evidence-from-a-honolulu-condo-tower/

More than just housing, Arbor 515 gives Salt Lake City residents the opportunity to build a future. The new development, a conversion of a former office building financed by Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), provides housing for residents earning between 25% and 55% of the area median income while also offering a unique opportunity to build equity.According to developer Chris Parker, director of the Perpetual Housing Fund (PHF), most of the building's annual cash flow will be returned to residents. If Arbor 515 is refinanced or sold, residents will also receive direct payments based on the length of time they have lived in their apartments. PHF, a lean non-profit with community-first capital sources, is able to share the majority of all annual cashflow, long-term equity generation, and future refinance/sale proceeds with the residents living in a PHF project.To learn more how this innovative approach is helping low income renters build financial security and explore whether similar ideas could help address Hawaiʻi's housing challenges, please listen Senator Chang and Chris Parker's intriguing conversation!! You can also watch this webinar on Senator Chang's YouTube page: HERE.

In this episode of Our Homes, Ellen Carson and Keith Webster (advocates for Faith Action for Community Equity, a nonprofit focusing on housing and homelessness solutions) speak about an empty homes tax under consideration by the Honolulu City Council. Modeled after Vancouver, Canada’s tax, Honolulu’s proposal would be levied on an empty home’s assessed value, on a graduated rate with a 3 year phase. Faith Action for Community Equity believes this would disincentivize non-resident buyers and create a funding mechanism to support more housing construction and homeless services.

In this episode of Our Homes, Dr. Cameron Murray, Australian economist and author of “The Great Housing Hijack,” speaks about the myths surrounding housing markets in Australia and elsewhere. Murray believes that high housing cost jurisdictions suffer from inequitable distribution of housing, not mere supply shortage. These housing shortages have been observed over the centuries, meaning that regulation alone cannot explain them. An alternative to the free market is required to aid those who cannot access a home. Jurisdictions need to implement a low-price alternative to rent or buy homes, like the Singapore model, which is already available to certain groups in Australia, like military servicemembers. This episode of Our Homes was hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.

In this episode of Our Homes, Kenzie Bok, the Administrator for the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), shares BHA’s plan to end the City’s housing shortage in part by building 3,000 mixed-income Faircloth units. This decision was spurred by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s decision to almost triple the subsidy amount available for Faircloth units. The authority has currently identified two sites, and Bok speaks on the current obstacles and the importance of their mixed-income, mixed-use, and revenue neutral building plans. Bok further speaks on the necessity of government’s role as provider of safe and affordable housing. This episode of Our Homes was hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.

In this episode of Our Homes, Dan Rinzler, Associate Research Director with the California Housing Partnership, shares his evaluation of Tahanan, a recently constructed permanent supportive housing (PSH) project in San Francisco. Tahanan’s development utilized cost-saving measures in financing, design, and construction, reducing residential costs and development times by roughly 40 percent compared to other PSH projects in San Francisco. Tahanan’s success and departure from common development practices represent an opportunity to reassess PSH requirements that delay and increase costs on this critical need. This episode of Our Homes was hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.

In this episode of Our Homes, Shreya Arakere, Liz Da Costa, and Alex Dayman from Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, Arizona's Medicaid program, discussed how Medicaid waivers are a new funding source for housing the homeless in Arizona. Arizona’s Medicaid will be able to provide six months of transitional housing for individuals moving from insecure environments like homeless shelters and group/foster homes. Arizona’s Medicaid will also offer case management, educational outreach, and other housing services under their Housing and Health Opportunities Waiver (H2O). With nearly 37,000 homeless and at-risk residents, Arizona’s new source of funding for housing the homeless will positively impact their state immensely. This episode of Our Homes was hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.

The Big Housing Build is a social housing plan to build 10,000 new and affordable homes across regional Victoria. Victoria’s population of 6.7 million in March 2023 is forecast to grow to 11.2 million by 2056. The state's exponential population growth coupled with issues of homelessness, the growing social housing waiting list, and rising costs of housing and living, act as the driving forces behind the Big Housing Build. Australian politician Sheena Watt, who serves in the Victorian Legislative Council for Northern Metropolitan Region since 2020, discusses the Big Housing Build in Victoria, Australia. Watt is the first Indigenous Australian woman to represent the Australian Labor Party in the Parliament of Victoria. She is the point person to talk to for the housing build across Victoria. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Ian Ross.

Initiative 135 (I-135), is a Seattle initiative that creates a new social housing developer to build, acquire and manage public, affordable housing in the city. Tiffany McCoy and Camille Gix believe that the key strategies that helped pass the initiative were centering the initiative around a positive vision, humanizing higher income renters (teachers/healthcare workers who may need affordable housing), highlighting the beneficial differences between this model compared to others, and using international/national examples for proof of concept. Tiffani McCoy is the advocacy director at Real Change and serves as the co-chair for the House Our Neighbors coalition. McCoy acted as the campaign manager for I-135, overseeing all campaign communications and field efforts from the start of the campaign through the victory. Camille Gix is a graduate student at the University of Washington and policy intern at Real Change. She was also on the steering committee for I-135, helping draft the initiative. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Ian Ross.

Since 2020, Covid-19 affected Hawaii’s housing market. At the beginning of the pandemic, housing prices dropped by an insignificant amount. As the pandemic continued into 2021, 2022, 2023, housing prices began increasing again, following the predicted trajectory of growth. Paul Brewbaker believes that the new wave of working from home plays a role in housing price increase. Paul Brewbaker is the principal of TZ Economics, a Hawaii consultancy doing corporate work, development impact analysis, and litigation support. His background is in research on the Hawaii economy and in country risk and financial risk analytics from 25 years as a commercial bank economist. He discusses the latest data about the Hawaii housing market in the wake of the pandemic. This episode of Our Homes is hosted by Senator Stanley Chang.