Last fall, The City of Memphis and Innovate Memphis published The State of Memphis Housing: Rising to Respond to Crisis to call attention to affordable housing challenges facing our community and foster collaborations to craft and implement solutions. In this episode, Mairi Albertson from the Division of Housing and Community Development and Austin Harrison with Innovate Memphis visit Memphis Metropolis to reflect on the impact of COVID on housing stability, how supply is falling in different segments of the affordable housing market, and how local government and nonprofits are and could be responding. 

In the second half of the program, commentator Charlie Santo returns to talk about the history of government-sponsored affordable housing - both public housing and housing vouchers - and how recent federal government programs focusing on neighborhood revitalization have reduced the overall supply of public housing units. Charlie and Emily also tee up some future Memphis Metropolis topics, such as community land trusts, the current multifamily construction boom in Midtown and downtown, and various kinds of rent-to-own programs that often promise much more than they deliver to participants. 

Resource

State of Memphis Housing Report