Abstract
The affordable housing crisis in the United States stands at the center of conversations surrounding economic, social, and political reform. The inability of millions of Americans to afford a safe place to live is the result of decades of legislation aimed at fiscally benefitting the individuals developing and managing properties labeled “affordable” as opposed to placing low-income Americans in suitable, long-term housing. This Note argues that state-sponsored gentrification, paired with ineffective housing assistance programs and discrimination, is driving the affordable housing crisis in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This Note studies several policy examples of state-sponsored gentrification in Northern Virginia, Richmond, and Hampton Roads before analyzing the assistance programs that are unable to function alongside the rapid rise in the cost of living. These policies and programs, in turn, result in source of income discrimination for program participants. This Note concludes by calling for a restructuring of affordable housing at a high policy level in addition to the passage of the Fair Housing Improvement Act.
Recommended Citation
Tolly Maloney,
More Harm than Good: How State-Sponsored Gentrification Is Driving the Affordable Housing Crisis, and a Call for Accountability and Source-of-Income Protections,
30 Wash. & Lee J. Civ. Rts. & Soc. Just. 289
(2024).
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol30/iss2/9