Subsidized elderly housing: public-private partnerships on the brink.
Starting in the early 1960s, the federal government joined with the private-sector housing developers in a partnership: in return for subsidized mortgages and tax benefits, developers would rent to low- and moderate-income tenants. Today, many elderly people live in these "publicly subsidized" units. The initial agreement, however, held out an escape clause: after 15 to 20 years, for-profit developers that wanted to end the partnership could prepay their mortgages, leaving tenants in those buildings "at risk" of rent increases and/or evictions. This article discusses that partnership, its options for dissolution, and the current solutions to the problem of the expiring agreements, including a moratorium, vouchers, and incentives. The compromise legislation responds to all interested parties--owners, current and would-be tenants, local governments, tax-payers--through a multi-stage sequence of dissolution, yet such a finely tuned, acutely sensitive legislative solution may not work easily or efficiently.
Retsinas
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JM
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, DC 20008, USA.
Retsinas
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D000368:Aged; D003363:Cost Control / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D005380:Financing, Government / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D016852:Housing for the Elderly / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D017149:Private Sector / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D017150:Public Sector / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D012946:Social Welfare / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014481:United States