Principal Investigator Lynn M Fisher
Project Website http://web.mit.edu/cre/research/hai/index.html
Housing matters. Housing is a cornerstone of any region, largely defining the quality of life for households and regional economic competitiveness. But housing is expensive. In the Boston region, as well as elsewhere in the world, moderate-income working households are increasingly finding adequate housing to be out of reach. Unfortunately, solving the affordability problem is difficult. It requires the engagement of a wide variety of groups -- households, municipal governments, private-sector developers, the mortgage industry, policy-makers and public agencies. It demands a breadth of housing alternatives -- across income groups, household sizes, housing tenures and locations. And it requires knowledge. Recognizing this complex problem, the MIT Center for Real Estate’s (MIT-CRE) Housing Affordability Initiative (HAI) catalyzes high-quality research and discussion around the modern housing affordability challenge.
Created in 2004, the Housing Affordability Initiative (HAI) is an outgrowth of the Center for Real Estate's mission to improve the built environment and the need for policy-relevant research on housing affordability in the Boston metropolitan area. Providing new data sources, analysis, policy evaluation and tools, HAI relies on the expertise of MIT faculty, staff and graduate students, and other research partners.
HAI promotes a body of scholarship for informed public discussion of regional housing issues and improved public and private decision-making.
HAI investigates and examines:
(*) The supply of housing and its attributes – proximity to jobs, school quality, and safety,(*) Interactions between housing development, housing policy and land use regulation,(*) Relationships between housing markets, communities, and both local and regional economic development.
HAI brings together and engages:
(*) The academic community at MIT and at other universities,(*) Students of all disciplines committed to housing research and practice,(*) Private developers, real estate investment trusts (REITs), mortgage industry participants and private equity funds,(*) Housing policy, planning and government officials,(*) Advocacy communities, as well as legal and environmental professionals.