The State of the Nation's Housing - 2007

The Tuesday, June 12, 2007, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I) carries a story headlined Homes cited as too costly for too many by P-I reporter Aubrey Cohen. The story's lede reads:

The U.S. housing market will struggle with too much supply and falling prices for a while yet, but its biggest problem is that homes are too expensive for too many families, according to a report released Monday.

The study Cohen's article refers to is titled The State of the Nation's Housing 2007. It was published by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. This annual report looks at the current pressures facing the nation’s housing markets and beyond them to the underpinnings of long run housing supply and demand.

Why include the findings from a nationally respected annual housing study in a blog that focuses on crime and security in the inland Northwest? Because stable, affordable housing and jobs that pay liveable wages are two essentials to reducing predatory criminal behavior among people who have neither.