Insufficiently Affordable: Public Opinion about Affordable Housing

Many Americans want government to improve housing affordability. Yet, proposals for affordable housing often encounter public resistance. Political scientist Tali Mendelberg argues that some of the resistance comes from concerns about upward redistribution, which are relatively neglected in existing scholarship. Americans tend to believe that so-called affordable housing is not truly affordable and unduly benefits wealthy actors. In a pilot survey, Mendelberg finds wide support for affordable housing when it primarily benefits people of low and modest means. This support holds even among suburbanites; even if the policy requires tax increases; and even when a hypothetical affordable building is proposed in the respondent’s neighborhood. Support for affordable housing policies increases when the policy bypasses private developers or restrains landlords’ rent increases. Redistributive sentiments shape these preferences above and beyond self-interest and racial attitudes. Mendelberg will replicate and extend these preliminary results with a higher-quality, more representative national sample and a sample of local voters. First, the PI will ask respondents their support or opposition to a series of hypothetical buildings that would be built in their neighborhood. She varies the number of units and level of affordability (who qualifies for the units) and shows the rent that would be charged for each income eligibility (indexed to local Area Median Income).