Workforce Housing

The widely used benchmark that housing is affordable when a household spends no more than 30% of its gross income on rent or mortgage costs plus utilities.

A small, self-contained home, with its own kitchen, bathroom and sleeping area, on the same lot as a main house. It can be inside the house, attached to it, or a separate backyard building.

Converting an existing building designed for another purpose, such as an office, school, hotel, factory, or warehouse, into housing rather than demolishing it and building new.

The midpoint income for families in a metro area or county, published each year by HUD and used to decide who qualifies for most affordable housing programs.

Housing or other construction that local staff must approve without a public hearing, variance or discretionary vote, because the project meets all of the written zoning and building standards that already apply to the site.

The full set of loans, equity, and subsidies that pays for a housing development, ranked by who gets repaid first and who takes the most risk.

Special Census Bureau tabulations, published by HUD, that count households by income level, tenure, and housing problems such as cost burden and overcrowding for nearly every U.S. state, county, and city.

A 1977 federal law that requires bank regulators to assess how well each insured bank meets the credit needs of its whole community, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, and to weigh that record when the bank seeks to expand.

A community built, owned, and run by a single employer, which supplied the housing, stores, and services its workers depended on, usually next to a factory, mine, or mill.

A local government's officially adopted long-range plan for how a community will grow, setting out where housing, jobs, roads, and parks should go, which zoning and other land-use rules are then expected to carry out.

A property's net operating income divided by its annual loan payments. Lenders use it to judge whether a building earns enough to repay its mortgage, and it largely sets how big a loan a project can get.

Delaware's cabinet-level state housing agency, which now calls itself Housing Delaware. It finances homes and rental housing, allocates the state's Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, and runs voucher and public housing programs.

Permission to build more homes on a site than zoning normally allows, granted in exchange for a public benefit, most often a share of income-restricted affordable units.

When households are forced or pressured to leave their homes or neighborhoods by forces outside their control, such as rising rents, eviction, redevelopment, or demolition, including the loss of affordable options that keeps similar households from moving in.

Grants or low-cost loans from governments, nonprofits, employers or lenders that help homebuyers cover the down payment and closing costs on a home.

Help that an employer gives its workers to buy, rent or live in homes near their jobs, such as down payment grants, forgivable loans, rental help, or housing the employer builds or finances.

People whose jobs keep a community running, such as nurses, teachers, first responders, grocery and transit workers. Housing policy increasingly targets them because many cannot afford to live near where they work.

Land-use rules that, by design or in effect, keep lower-cost housing out of a community. Examples include bans on apartments, large minimum lot sizes, and limits on manufactured homes. Such rules raise housing costs and can reinforce economic and racial segregation.

Two congressionally chartered, shareholder-owned companies that buy mortgages from lenders and package them into guaranteed securities, keeping a steady supply of money flowing to home loans and apartment financing.

A federal agency within HUD that insures private lenders against losses on qualifying mortgages, which makes low-down-payment home loans and long-term apartment financing easier to get.

In most housing programs, a buyer who has not owned a principal residence in the past three years, not only someone who has never owned a home.

Money that fills the shortfall between what an affordable housing development costs and what its private loans and investor equity can cover. It usually comes from government agencies or other mission-driven lenders on favorable terms.

Neighborhood change in which higher-income residents and new investment move into a historically lower-income area, raising rents and home values and often changing who lives there and the neighborhood's character.

A federal income tax credit equal to 20% of the qualified costs of rehabilitating a certified historic, income-producing building, claimed in equal parts over five years.

A bond sold by a state or local government, or its housing agency, to raise money for housing, such as low-interest mortgages for first-time buyers, loans for affordable apartments, or a local affordable housing fund.

The condition of a household that spends more than 30% of its gross income on housing costs, including rent or mortgage payments and utilities. Spending more than 50% is called a severe cost burden.

A study that measures a community's current and future housing needs, including how many homes are missing, at what prices, and for whom, so governments can set goals and direct resources.

A gap between the homes a place needs and the homes it has. It can mean too few homes overall, or too few that households at a given income can afford and actually get.

A pool of public money that a state, county, or city dedicates by law to affordable housing, usually fed by a recurring revenue source rather than a one-time appropriation.

The hourly wage a full-time worker must earn to afford a modest rental home at HUD's Fair Market Rent without spending more than 30% of income on housing, as calculated by NLIHC.

A one-time charge a local government places on new development to help pay for the roads, water and sewer lines, schools, parks, and other public facilities that growth requires.

A local land-use policy that requires or encourages developers of new market-rate housing to set aside a share of the homes at prices or rents affordable to lower- and moderate-income households.

The maximum household incomes, set as percentages of area median income and adjusted for household size, that determine who is eligible for HUD-assisted and other affordable housing.

A small living unit of no more than 500 square feet created within the walls of a single-family home, with its own entrance and an efficiency kitchen. The term is defined in California law.

A fee charged on new commercial or other non-residential development to help pay for the affordable housing needed by the workers those new jobs bring to a community.

An independent analysis of whether there is enough demand, at the proposed rents and income levels, to fill a planned housing development and keep it occupied without hurting nearby properties.

Housing whose rent or sale price is set by supply and demand in the private market, with no public subsidy, no income limits for residents, and no affordability restriction on what the owner can charge.

A zoning or subdivision rule that sets the smallest land area a lot must have before a home can be built on it, which caps how many homes can fit on a given amount of land.

Small multi-unit or clustered homes, such as duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses and cottage courts, built at roughly the size of a detached house. Zoning has made them rare in many U.S. neighborhoods.

An income band with no single legal definition. Federal programs place it anywhere from 50% to about 115% of area median income, and workforce housing programs commonly use roughly 80% to 120%.

New Jersey's constitutional rule, set by its Supreme Court starting in 1975, that municipalities must use their zoning powers to create a realistic opportunity for their fair share of the region's low- and moderate-income housing.

Privately owned rental housing that lower- and moderate-income households can afford without any public subsidy or legal rent restriction, usually because the buildings are older, modest, or in less expensive locations.

Short for 'Not In My Back Yard': local opposition to new housing or other development near one's own home, often from people who may accept that it is needed somewhere else.

Low-income census tracts, nominated by governors and certified by the U.S. Treasury, where investors can defer and reduce capital gains taxes by investing through a Qualified Opportunity Fund.

Zoning rules that require new buildings to include at least a set number of off-street parking spaces, such as one or two per apartment, regardless of how many cars the residents actually own.

A payment that a tax-exempt or partially exempt property owner makes to a local government instead of regular property taxes, often set below the full tax bill to help keep housing affordable.

The early, high-risk phase of a housing project before construction financing closes, when a developer secures the site, studies feasibility, designs the building, and wins approvals and funding commitments.

A temporary reduction in the property taxes a building owes, granted by a local government in exchange for something the community wants, such as new housing or a share of affordable units.

Changes that housing providers must allow or make for people with disabilities under the Fair Housing Act: an accommodation adjusts a rule, policy, or service, and a modification alters the physical premises.

Laws that limit how much and how often a landlord can raise the rent on an existing home, ranging from strict caps tied to a fixed formula to looser 'anti-gouging' limits on annual increases.

Housing for people employed only part of the year, such as farmworkers and resort, hospitality or recreation staff, who need a place to live near the job for weeks or months.

Homes, apartments, or rooms rented to guests for brief stays, often defined as fewer than 30 days and usually booked through online platforms. Local governments regulate them through zoning, licensing, and tax rules.

A zoning designation that allows only one detached house per lot, ruling out duplexes, townhouses, and apartments on that land. It is the most restrictive common residential zone in American cities and suburbs.

A modestly sized, relatively low-priced home, such as a small house, townhouse or condominium, that a first-time buyer can afford and often later sells to trade up.

A local financing tool that freezes a district's property tax base and uses the extra tax revenue from rising values to pay for public investments there, sometimes including affordable housing.

The cabinet-level federal department, created in 1965, that runs the nation's main housing assistance, community development, mortgage insurance, and fair housing programs.

A change to zoning rules that allows more housing or larger buildings on a piece of land than before, for example by permitting fourplexes where only single-family houses were allowed or by raising height limits.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's mission area that lends, guarantees, and grants money for housing, utilities, and businesses in rural America, including home loans and rental housing for lower-income rural households.

Housing priced for working households that earn too much to qualify for most housing assistance but too little to afford market-rate homes near their jobs, often defined as roughly 60% or 80% up to 120% of area median income.

Short for 'Yes In My Back Yard': a pro-housing movement and political stance that supports building more homes of all kinds, including in established neighborhoods, mainly by loosening zoning and permitting rules.