Building homes for extremely low-income people allows other homes to filter up to people in need—a better bet than waiting for luxury units to trickle down.

Author, Miriam Axel-Lute – November 2, 2017

“There’s a lot of talk about how homes will “filter down.” The argument goes that building new luxury housing will allow the wealthiest people to move into new housing, and (if the supply outstrips demand), eventually what had been high-end housing will command less money and will “filter down” to be affordable to lower income levels. Just how well this works, for whom, and how quickly is the subject of muchdebate, which I won’t wade into right now.”

“But here’s the thing we don’t talk about enough: developing affordable housing in a tight, high-cost market also increases overall affordability through filtering! Just in the other direction—it trickles up.”

Source: Trickle Up Housing: Filtering Does Go Both Ways – Shelterforce   Click the link to read the whole story on the Shelterforce site.