Two different ways to build housing

Why we need more of both ADUs and public housing

This week saw the publication of two interesting pieces about how to solve the country’s housing crisis. [I wrote this before Francesca Mari’s NY Times piece about Vienna’s social housing dropped.]

• On Sunday, the Washington Post ran a piece about how accessory dwelling units (ADUs) are helping California address both the high cost of housing and the low supply of affordable housing.

• On Monday, Slate published an op-ed by Daniel Denvir and Yonah Freemark calling for a new era of public housing.

Both ADUs and public housing are legitimate ways of addressing the housing crisis, but they come at the problem from very different directions. ADUs are mostly private-sector driven, while public housing is paid for and administered by the public sector. Both types of housing are needed, but face big questions: Can America overcome the costs, long lag time, and community opposition of building public housing? Can ADUs actually reach the people who need affordable housing the most?