Tax credit program answers need for affordable housing
Civil engineer and worker discussing issues at the housing construction site (Stock photo/Deposit Photo)
In the same way as the Covid pandemic has negatively impacted the Arizona economy and many families’ personal finances, the past year has placed even more pressure on the state’s housing market – in particular, the need to build more affordable rental housing.
Even before the pandemic, about 120,000 people were moving to Arizona each year. Such exponential growth means that our state needs to build an estimated 240,000 new rental units this decade. What would have been a major challenge under favorable pre-pandemic economic conditions has now become a behemoth task. With property owners struggling under the various eviction bans enacted to protect renters from losing their homes – and in many cases facing non-payment or reduced payment of rent for the past 10 months – the capital to build new affordable housing re