Fwd: Beware Shallow Housing Fixes
Jim Schulman
-- Jim Schulman, Executive Director
---------- Original Message ----------From: The Main Street Journal <mainstre...@substack.com>Date: 11/20/2025 3:01 PM ESTSubject: Beware Shallow Housing Fixes
We are in a remarkable political moment where all the dominant solutions for today’s housing crisis—across the political spectrum—miss the mark.
Trumpers are now pushing a 50-year mortgage, which trades a tiny reduction in monthly payments for more than doubling of long-term interest expenses. What a nice gift to the banking industry!
Mainstream Republicans still embrace Opportunity Zones, which are giving deep tax credits to wealthy investors who gentrify distressed communities.
Moderates are pushing an “abundance” agenda, which seeks to increase the power of developers to crush undemocratically neighborhoods and environmental groups. The result could well be shoddy construction that dramatically lowers property values and erodes community wealth.
Progressives are fixated on rent control in the name of “affordability,” which benefits existing renters at the expense of everyone else, including those unhoused or who must commute huge distances to their jobs. Landlords stop repairing buildings, abandonment increases, and the housing crisis deepens.
Our main articles in this issue of The Main Street Journal explain the folly of these approaches and suggest a better alternative: Expanded home ownership. By opening up ownership opportunities—especially in vacant buildings and properties—we can get more low-income Americans housing in a way that builds personal wealth and community wealth.
Housing ownership can be made more plentiful and affordable through:
Land trusts (purchasers only buy the house, not the land)
Community stewardship trusts (see the Nonprofit Quarterly article below about “The Guild” in Atlanta)
Co-op housing (which can split equity in many different ways)
Land taxes on unused or underused buildings (which can quickly increase the local housing supply)
Municipal policies, such as land banks that convert unused or underused structures into purchasable properties (also read about the other land-use tools discussed in the Brookings article below)
Shared down-payment opportunities (see the ImpactAlpha article on the intriguing designs by Homium and Ownify)
These strategies collectively make housing more affordable, more plentiful, and more community-friendly. And we can accelerate them through local investment, whether in specific projects, through local funds, or with stronger community development financial institutions.
Also in this issue, you’ll find:
A report on Michigan’s proposed 50% income tax credit for local investment, which just advanced in the Republican-controlled House and seems likely to pass in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
The launch of the Boston Impact Initiative’s “First Mover Fund,” which aims to seed local investment funds across the country, benefiting communities of color.
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