Affordable Homeownership

Affordable housing: While just two words, the concept isn't really as simple as it might sound.

Despite the complexity of the issue, we so often hear the term "affordable housing" thrown around by everyone from politicians to activists to the press, as if it were a single, monolithic thing.

But there are different types of affordable housing, said Chris Herbert, managing director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, leftover from years of housing policies.

It's helpful to think of affordable housing essentially in two camps, Herbert said: housing that is subsidized for low-income residents, and housing that’s "provided by the private market without subsidies, but is affordable to households with more modest means."

"Affordability isn’t an intrinsic quality of a housing unit," Herbert said. "It’s relative to what your income is, and it’s relative to what housing costs in the market."

Subsidized housing — what many people think of when they hear the term "affordable housing," Herbert says — is housing for those with lower incomes. It includes public housing developments and what is known as Section 8 housing. Residents receive vouchers or pay a fixed percentage of their income — no matter how modest it is — in rent.

On the other hand, there's non-subsidized housing geared toward being affordable for middle-class households. But in an area as affluent and expensive as the Greater Tampa area, who that covers can be a pretty big tent.