A Lot of Cheap Housing Is About to Get Very Expensive
With 400,000 affordable units expiring, housing advocates fear that owners will seek to cash in on gentrifying neighborhoods.
The Marina City Towers in Chicago.
Photographer: Timothy Hiatt/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Urban Institute fellow Erika Poethig has a poster in her office showing 22 apartment buildings along Chicago's Lake Shore Drive. They were all built with U.S. government dollars to provide affordable housing to thousands of low-income households—and have since been converted to market-rate apartments and condominiums.
For Poethig, a former official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, those apartments are a warning.