debut: 12/26/07
34,246 runs
One Solution to America’s Housing Crisis Might Be Found in Millions of Vacant Spare Bedrooms
According to a Census analysis from last year by Apartment List, there are an astonishing 137 million spare bedrooms in the United States.
The obstacles abound. As if locked-in mortgage rates and property tax abatements weren’t enough to keep aging households in place, the prevalence of single-family zoning ensures that neighborhoods have no building stock besides large stand-alone houses. Give the owners of those homes a place to downsize, and you might put some of those 137 million spare bedrooms into everyday use. A full house, and not just on Thanksgiving.
For a moment there I thought the author of the article was advocating a mandate for the usage of those spare bedrooms to house the forever growing homeless population.
