What does “affordable housing” actually mean—and why does it feel so out of reach?

Hosted by Jaime and Robin—affordable housing industry professionals—Defining Affordable takes a clear, practical look at one of today’s most urgent challenges. This podcast goes beyond headlines to unpack the real forces shaping housing, from rent and development to homelessness, zoning, and the policies that determine who has access to opportunity.

Built for people working across the housing ecosystem—development, finance, property management, resident services, homelessness response, and government—this show connects your day-to-day work to the bigger system behind it.

Through each episode, we’ll explore:

How decades of policy decisions shaped today’s housing landscape

Why affordable housing is so difficult to build—and why supply falls short

The historical roots of inequity, including redlining, segregation, and zoning

What’s really driving homelessness in California

Real-world examples of communities and programs making progress

This isn’t just about buildings—it’s about people, stability, and opportunity.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated or stuck working within a system that doesn’t quite add up, you’re not alone—and you’re in the right place.

Follow, subscribe, and join us as we define what “affordable” really means.

In this foundational episode of Defining Affordable, Robin and Jaime step back to unpack how California’s housing crisis became the norm—and why it shouldn’t be. They explore rising rents, stagnant wages, and the growing gap between incomes and housing costs, grounding the conversation in real numbers and everyday experiences. From rent burden to housing scarcity, this episode separates symptoms from root causes and lays the groundwork for understanding how policy decisions shaped today’s affordability challenges.

Sources & Further Reading

• California Housing Shortage (SCPR)
• Why Housing Costs Are So High in California (CalMatters)
• Rent Increases Across U.S. Cities (CBS News)
• The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes (National Low Income Housing Coalition)
• Why The California housing market is so expensive in 2024 (CalMatters)

In this episode of Defining Affordable, Jaime and Robin explore why the cost of housing is the single strongest predictor of homelessness — and how policy decisions helped create today’s crisis.

Through the history of housing policy in the United States — from the New Deal and deinstitutionalization to the loss of SRO housing and major federal funding cuts — they unpack how rising rents and the shortage of deeply affordable homes create the homelessness crisis we see today.

The conversation covers:

• Why rent prices are the strongest predictor of homelessness
• The loss of low-cost housing options
• How policy decisions shaped today’s crisis
• What “Housing First” means and why it works

This episode connects the dots between housing affordability, public policy, and homelessness.

Colburn, Gregg, and Clayton Page Aldern. Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns. University of California Press, 2022.

Burt, Martha R. “Helping America’s Homeless: Emergency Shelter or Affordable Housing?” Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin–Madison, https://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc52b.pdf.

“Brief History of Homelessness in the U.S.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Magazine, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2026, https://magazine.publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/brief-history-homelessness-us.

“Federal Housing Cuts Left Millions Without Homes.” WRAP, 28 July 2023, https://wraphome.org/2023/07/28/federal-housing-cuts-left-millions-without-homes/.

Hartman, Chester, and David Robinson. “Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness in America.” Shelterforce, 1 May 2004, https://shelterforce.org/2004/05/01/reagans-legacy-homelessness-in-america/.

“How Housing Costs Drive Levels of Homelessness.” The Pew Charitable Trusts, 22 Aug. 2023, https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2023/08/22/how-housing-costs-drive-levels-of-homelessness.

“How States and Cities Decimated America’s Lowest-Cost Housing Option.” The Pew Charitable Trusts, July 2025, https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2025/07/how-states-and-cities-decimated-americans-lowest-cost-housing-option.

“Homelessness in America.” Places Journal, https://placesjournal.org/article/tent-city-america/.

“State of Homelessness: 2025 Edition.” National Alliance to End Homelessness, https://endhomelessness.org/state-of-homelessness/.

Tsai, Jack, et al. “Housing and Homelessness in the United States.” National Library of Medicine, 2023, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10574586/. Accessed 12 May 2026.

In this episode of Defining Affordable, Jaime and Robin unpack LIHTC—the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program—and explain why it is the main way affordable housing gets built in the U.S. today.

Using simple analogies, they break down how tax credits incentivize investors, why developers need them to make affordable housing projects financially viable, and how AMI, or Area Median Income, determines who qualifies. They also explore a key tension: housing can be “affordable” as a program category, but still not be affordable for the person living there.

Calculate your housing cost burden using HUD’s definition of affordability:

Housing Cost ÷ Gross Monthly Income × 100

• 30% or under = Affordable
• 31%–50% = Rent burdened
• Over 50% = Severely rent burdened

Look up your city's AMI limits :

• https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il2025/select_geography.odn

Affordable Housing Basics

• https://ebho.org/study-room/what-is-affordable-housing/

How LIHTC Works

• https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/98758/lithc_how_it_works_and_who_it_serves_final_2.pdf
• https://www.adventuresincre.com/inside-an-lihtc-investment/
• https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il2025/select_geography.odn

Housing Affordability Research

• https://nlihc.org/gap – The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes (NLIHC)

San Diego Salary Data Referenced

• Public School Teacher Salary: https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-school-teacher-salary/san-diego-ca
• Social Work Case Manager Salary: https://www.indeed.com/career/social-work-case-manager/salaries/San-Diego--CA
• Mechanic Salaries: https://www.indeed.com/career/mechanic/salaries/San-Diego--CA
• https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/what-jobs-in-san-diego-pay-for-essential-expenses/509-805ff991-a37b-4550-b096-029e1e7f5a4c

This episode of Defining Affordable traces the shift in U.S. housing policy from the 1950s through the 1990s, as urban renewal and highway projects displaced low-income communities and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 sought to address discrimination. Robin and Jaime examine how the federal government moved away from public housing—citing its visible decline while overlooking chronic underfunding and often blaming residents—and pivoted toward vouchers and market-based solutions. The episode connects these policy choices to today’s affordability challenges and what our cities look like today.

Sources and Further Reading:

• A Brief History of Housing Policy in the U.S.
• https://nurseledcare.phmc.org/advocacy/policy-blog/item/641:a-brief-history-of-housing-policy-in-the-u-s.htm
• Federal Housing Assistance Programs (CRS Report)
• https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R41654.html

• Mapping Inequality: Urban Renewal
• https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/renewal/#view=0/0/1&viz=cartogram&text=defining
• Urban Renewal StoryMap
• https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/20975b3e5ae244bdb4fccd7ce2f4714a
• Urban Redevelopment and Policy (Journal Article)
• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/107808749703300207
• The Battle of Chicano Park
• https://www.chicano-park.com/cpscbattleof.html

• Roads to Nowhere: How Infrastructure Built American Inequality
• https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/21/roads-nowhere-infrastructure-american-inequalityl
• How the Interstate Highway System Reinforced Segregation
• https://www.history.com/articles/interstate-highway-system-infrastructure-construction-segregation
• 4 Ways U.S. Highways Were Designed to Harm Black Communities
• https://www.cracked.com/article_30222_4-ways-us-highways-were-designed-to-screw-over-black-americans.htm
• A Forgotten History of How the U.S. Government Segregated America
• https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america
• Segregation by Design
• https://www.segregationbydesign.com/

• A History of Public Housing (NLIHC)
• https://nlihc.org/resource/public-housing-history
• Why Public Housing Was Set Up to Fail
• https://www.vox.com/policy/390082/public-housing-america-policy-failure-poverty
• The Sabotage of Public Housing
• https://www.homewardboundvillages.org/the-sabotage-of-public-housing-how-policy-choices-created-todays-crisis/
• Public Housing: What Went Wrong?
• https://shelterforce.org/1994/09/01/public-housing-what-went-wrong/
• The Pruitt-Igoe Myth and the Death Knell of Public Housing
• https://nhc.org/the-pruitt-igoe-myth-and-the-death-knell-of-public-housing/

• Fair Housing Act Overview (HUD)
• https://www.hud.gov/helping-americans/fair-housing-act-overview
• What Is the Faircloth Amendment?
• https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/what-is-the-faircloth-amendment

• Family Options Study (HUD)
• https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/Family-Options-Study-Full-Report.pdf

This episode of Defining Affordable traces the timeline of how today’s housing crisis was built—from New Deal–era policies that expanded access to homeownership and affordable rentals for some, while deliberately excluding others. Robin and Jaime connect those inequitable policy decisions to the affordability challenges we see today. Covering the period through the 1960s, this episode sets the stage for Part 2, which will dive deeper into urban renewal, housing vouchers, and the modern landscape of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC).

Sources & Further Reading

• The Epic of America — James Truslow Adams (1931)
• The Color of Law — Richard Rothstein (2017)
• A History of the American Dream — George W. Bush Presidential Center
• A Brief History of Housing Policy in the U.S. — Nurse-Led Care Collaborative
• Why Are Housing Costs So High in California? — CalMatters
• Homeownership Gaps by Race — Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• The Racial Wealth Gap — NYC Department of Health
• Housing and Health: An Overview of the Literature — Health Affairs
• Structural Racism and Housing Inequities — Public Health Reports
• Life Expectancy in the United States: Working-Class Report — U.S. Senate (2025)