It?s become a key component of Democratic housing plans, but experts say it could drive rents up further The growing affordable housing crisis has reached such a peak that it?s pushing housing issues into the conversation surrounding the 2020 election. It marks the first time in recent memory that presidential candidates have had to come up with policy prescriptions for the rent being ?too damn high.?
While only four of the 20-odd candidates running in the Democratic primary have released concrete proposals on housing, three of those four?Senator Cory Booker, Senator Kamala Harris, and former HUD Secretary Julián Castro?have proposed what would amount to a new entitlement aimed at giving cost-burdened renters a breather: a renters tax credit. The renters tax credit would give taxpayers a credit worth any amount in rent that they pay over 30 percent of their income (paying more than 30 percent of your income in rent is the standard definition of being a cost-burdened renter). So, if 30 percent of your income is $15,000, and you pay $18,000 in rent, the federal government would give you a tax credit of $3,000.
The Booker, Harris, and Castro plans each come with differing conditions and qualifications to the subsidy: Booker?s plan caps the subsidy at the fair market rent of the renter?s zip code. Castro?s plan takes a zip code?s fair market rent ?into account? while also limiting the subsidy to families making between 50 and 100 percent of the area median income.
Harris?...