As a nationwide housing shortage keeps affordable options scarce, an old idea is getting a new look.
Housing advocates and several cities and counties are championing what has recently started to be called “social housing:” residences built and managed by the government, or public housing.
Private developers have the hardest time building the units that are most affordable to tenants, said Iziah Thompson, a senior policy analyst with Community Service Society of New York. Social housing aims to leverage the public purse to “create a stock of affordable housing that otherwise the market would have a difficult time creating,” he said. CSSNY has studied the issue extensively…