Take yourself back twenty or thirty years (or less, if strictly necessary due to age considerations) and reading apartment-for-rent ads in the newspaper (remember them?) for say, ‘2 bdrm apt $450 mo’, and saying to yourself, ‘great, that’s an apartment I can afford.’
That apartment was most likely ‘naturally occurring affordable housing’, now an endangered species in many cities.
Naturally occurring affordable housing was built as market rate housing that for one reason or another — perhaps low housing demand in a neighbourhood or town — is still affordable.
‘Affordable Housing’ built with tax credits or construction grants or any other form of financial support that lowers the price below the present market rate for an unsubsidized but similar apartment is NOT naturally occurring affordable housing.
In many cities, naturally occurring affordable housing is rare, and becoming more rare every day. Housing jurisdictions with affordable housing problems are taking steps to preserve this naturally occurring affordable housing.
Rent control is one method to preserve naturally occurring affordable housing. But rent control has historically had its limits. These days rent controls allow a landlord to ‘adjust for inflation’ (or greed or whatever) when tenants change. This is the point at which naturally occurring affordable housing is at greatest risk for becoming UNaffordable housing.
Another way to preserve naturally occurring affordable housing is to ensure the sales process discourages the new landlord from significantly raising rents. In some jurisdictions (the province of Ontario for example), a new landlord must honour existing tenancies.
In other jurisdictions, sitting tenants may not be as well protected from the consequences of the sale of a rental building, and new ordinances are required.
Read How Minneapolis is attempting to protect its remaining naturally affordable housing in Minnesota Daily: Tenant Protection Ordinance Aims To Preserve Affordable Housing
