Affordable Housing Crisis

Affordable Housing Crisis

I live in California and have been searching affordable housing for years for my family. With no luck, and after looking more into the Affordable Housing Crisis. I learned where the crisis began, how long it began, as well as how this housing crisis got so bad. When starting this project, I selected the housing crisis, because it directly affected me, especially being in California. However, I have learned from these resources, that this housing crisis isn’t just a state issue, or even a national issue, but a worldwide issue. Countries such as England are even suffering from affordable housing.  This research made me more passionate about this social change knowing that it has affected so many people. I learn the number of people who are affected by affordable housing, this action research shows the strength in number we will have through supporters in social change initiatives.

So many people and entities are involved in this housing crisis, therefore there are several stakeholders that need to be engaged for support and social change initiatives. Strategies such as internet surveys and op-eds to show real life effect of people suffering from this crisis. Also, showing we have a strategy for change. Using social media and internet to gain support on housing bills, and financial relief. Getting people, banks, relators, state, and federal governments involved to shoe stakeholder support and those affected, and in need of this social change. Engaging stakeholders in rally’s, protest, and workshops for financial advising, home loans, Bankruptcy, and Credit counseling. Strategies that have been used before in housing crisis such as; Underlying this point of view is the belief that government regulation and intervention in markets cause more problems than they solve. In particular, these critics maintain that the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act pushed banks to make bad loans by requiring them to serve low-income neighborhoods. Although the law set no lending quotas or even targets, it enabled community groups to extract concessions from banks that sought to expand or acquire rivals. ACORN, for example, has used the CRA as leverage to compel banks to create pools of loans for low- and moderate-income families. Its efforts have generated about $6 billion in loans to these borrowers, while also generating funds for ACORN's nonprofit housing corporation. Supporters call that a win-win scenario; critics say it's legalized extortion (Anonymous, 2008).

When addressing my peers, I want to ask what steps do they think the government should take to address this housing crisis? Home and Bank Bailouts? Working Americans pay increase? Lowering housing cost? What is the best way to make purchasing and home more affordable for working class Americans?  Do you think more stimulus packages will help or was a mistake like; When the Obama administration took office in February 2009, the US economy was definitely heading into a deep recession. A large decline in consumption and investment, and massive layoffs resulted in negative GDP growth and record breaking unemployment. The annualized quarterly GDP growth rate dropped to - 4.0 percent in the third quarter of 2009 and -6.8 percent in the last quarter. It was the worst performance of the US economy since the Great Depression. Unemployment rate started to increase very rapidly, from 5.4 percent in May 2008 to 8.2 percent in February 2009. With worsening output and growing unemployment, the new Administration pushed for the second stimulus package, as many felt that the size of the previous Bush stimulus package was too small to have an adequate effect on such a large-scale recession (Sunwoong, 2010).

Works Cited

Anonymous. (2008). Don't blame the victims; greedy mortgage brokers and lenders, not affordable-housing advocates, ignited the credit crisis. Los Angeles Times.

Sunwoong, K. (2010). It’s the Housing Market, Stupid! US Housing Crisis and Public Policy Response. Seri Quarterly.