Cities across the country face growing pressures to expand their local housing supply to meet rising demand and alleviate barriers faced by renters and home buyers, making housing unattainable for many. To effectively address housing needs, a dual approach is required: developing new housing units while preserving existing ones. This approach helps to prevent the loss of housing units or affordability and ensures that residents can remain in their homes. For cities to achieve long-lasting housing supply, displacement prevention should be prioritized in every local housing supply strategy.
Key Takeaways
- Housing supply and displacement prevention must advance together. Cities should expand housing options while preserving existing homes to meet demand and protect long-term housing stability.
- Displacement is multidimensional and community-wide. It affects not only housing, but also residents, businesses and cultural anchors through physical, economic, environmental, exclusionary and cultural displacement.
- Growth without safeguards exacerbates inequities. Without intentional protections, new public and private investments can reinforce historic racial and economic disparities.
- Cities should adopt comprehensive anti-displacement plans. Proactive, data-informed strategies help manage growth, protect residents and cultural assets and ensure more equitable outcomes.
Rapid growth in housing supply without a focus on housing stability poses a risk of displacing residents. This risk is particularly acute in high-cost or resource-rich communities where demand is strong. Influxes of new investment, higher-income residents and businesses can drive up property values and taxes (PDF), placing a financial strain on existing residents and displacing economically vulnerable homeowners.
Displacement does not affect all residents equally. Black residents and communities of color are disproportionately impacted due to a legacy of redlining, disinvestment, urban renewal and exclusionary housing policies. Additionally, low- and middle-income households, renters and people with disabilities also face a greater risk of displacement.
Furthermore, displacement can occur when public or private investments enter communities, such as the expansion of transportation networks, which may drive further investment in housing. Without intentional safeguards, new investment can reinforce historic inequities rather than address them, and — devoid of a plan to protect residents — existing housing stock community resources and the benefits of public investments may not be shared equitably.
Planning for housing supply growth without addressing displacement is comparable to a broken bucket. While the number of housing units may increase, housing stability will continue to decline as residents are pushed out or housing units are lost.
Defining Displacement
Displacement occurs in various forms, affecting not only housing but the broader community, businesses and cultural anchors. Understanding these forms can help in developing effective policy and planning strategies. Types of displacement include:
- Physical Displacement: Occurs when building conditions deteriorate or become unsafe, forcing residents to leave.
- Economic Displacement: Occurs when housing costs, taxes or utilities become unaffordable for residents, forcing them to move.
- Environmental Displacement: Caused by extreme weather events and environmental conditions.
- Exclusionary Displacement: Where rising costs prevent individuals from moving into resource-rich neighborhoods, often as a result of new investment or disinvestment.
- Cultural Displacement: Involves the loss of cultural identity and social cohesion due to the displacement of long-term residents, changes in neighborhood demographics and services and the loss of community anchors, such as legacy businesses and religious organizations.
Anti-Displacement Policies
- Physical: Allocated funding for housing rehabilitation, hazard mitigation and preservation of aging housing stock.
- Economic: Create diverse housing options, preserve naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH), provide rent stabilization, subsidies and tax relief.
- Environmental: Invest in climate-resilient construction and retrofits, plan for relocation and avoid building in high-risk areas.
- Exclusionary: Promote inclusionary zoning, support mixed-income development and enforce fair housing practices to ensure housing access.
- Cultural: Designate cultural districts, secure funding for community-centered initiatives, implement legacy or small business preservation programs, allocate affordable commercial spaces and promote community ownership models.
Managing the Growing Pains and Developing an Anti-Displacement Plan
Cities cannot afford to stagnate or resist growth, as families across the country need safe, stable and affordable housing. However, unplanned growth can lead to challenges that may jeopardize housing investments. Failing to mitigate displacement can lead to a decline in housing quality, a loss of affordability and increased community inequities. To prevent these issues, it is essential to anticipate both current and future needs while incorporating protective measures into housing policies from the onset.
Housing does not exist in isolation; strong communities rely on housing stability, and housing options are shaped by access to jobs, transportation, amenities and social cohesion. Therefore, a systems-based approach to housing planning is essential for long-term success, considering the combined benefits of housing.
Key Considerations in Developing an Anti-Displacement Plan Include:
- Identify housing market pinch points and areas of vulnerability: Cities are encouraged to assess areas facing current displacement pressures and gaps in the housing market to help prioritize and allocate resources effectively.
Displacement Type Addressed: Economic and Exclusionary Displacement
The City of Portland, Ore., utilizes a Vulnerability Risk Analysis (PDF) to identify communities at the highest risk before development pressures intensify.
- Implement tenant and homeowner protections: Strong safeguards for renters and homeowners help stabilize communities during periods of economic distress and unforeseen challenges. Strategies may include prevention programs, tax relief and homeowner foreclosure prevention programs.
Displacement Type Addressed: Economic and Exclusionary Displacement
Salt Lake City, Utah’s Thriving in Place strategy and action plan focuses on long-term solutions to help residents remain in their homes and prevent displacement.
- Invest in housing preservation, rehabilitation and repair: Prioritizing existing affordable housing helps maintain long-term affordability and prevents the loss of naturally occurring affordable units. Repair and rehabilitation can focus on areas of the neighborhood in decline due to housing quality, which impacts the neighborhood at large.
Displacement Type Addressed: Physical and Environmental Displacement
The City of Tacoma, Wash.’s Anti-Displacement Plan (PDF) emphasizes housing preservation by prioritizing resources for acquisition and preservation activities, particularly when properties meeting high-priority criteria are at risk of sale.
- Engage stakeholders inclusively and meaningfully in anti-displacement plans: Involving residents, landlords, property owners, businesses and community-based organizations builds trust, accountability and shared ownership of outcomes. Anti-displacement efforts should also focus on preserving cultural assets, not just housing.
Displacement Type Addressed: Cultural Displacement
The San Francisco Cultural Districts Program supports placemaking and placekeeping by preserving and strengthening cultural communities through coordinated resources, funding and technical assistance.
- Capture data and measure progress over time: Measuring success beyond unit counts is essential to ensuring long-term housing stability. Cities should track indicators such as tenure and residential stability, rent growth relative to household income, demographic stability and retention of small and legacy businesses to assess the effectiveness of anti-displacement efforts over time.
Displacement Type Addressed: All Types
The City of Durham, N.C., in partnership with Durham County and Durham Public Schools, launched the Durham Housing Dashboard to provide a comprehensive, shared understanding of local housing conditions and a unified housing strategy, affordability, homelessness, housing supply and homeownership.
Conclusion
The need to expand housing supply is urgent — yet, it’s crucial to protect residents and existing housing with anti-displacement strategies. This is vital for sustainable growth that benefits everyone. Cities must lead with intention, proactively setting communities up for success today and in the future.
Balancing Housing Supply and the Risk of Displacement
View our earlier publication for additional strategies and case studies on displacement.
About the Author
Balancing Housing Supply and the Risk of Displacement
- Stephanie Onuaja
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- CitiesSpeak Guest