Has the Mount Laurel Doctrine Delivered on Smart Growth?

United Nations. General Assembly. Universal Declaration of Human Rights ; United Nations

The subprime mortgage fiasco and high rate of foreclosures have elevated the housing crisis to the front page of most newspapers and nightly news programs in recent months, but the lack of affordable housing and increasing homelessness have been silently growing in this country for decades. Sixty years ago, the United Nations codified the right to housing as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 25(1)), but the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimates that approximately 3.5 million people, 1.35 million of them children, are likely to experience homelessness in the United States this year (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 2007). Recently, the National Low Income Housing Coalition reported that the likelihood of living in unaffordable housing increased between 2001 and 2005. In 2005, only 38 affordable and available units existed for every 100 extremely low-income renter households nationwide. About 3.4 million households lived in crowded homes, and approximately 850,000 were without complete bath or kitchen facilities (www.nlihc.org/doc/Mid-DecadeReport_2-19-08.pdf.) The Coalition's report, "Out of Reach" (available at www.nlihc.org/oor/oor2008), lets you see how your community rates on housing affordability with a side-by-side comparison of wages and rents in every county, metropolitan area (MSAs/HMFAs), combined nonmetropolitan area, and state in the United States. You may be shocked. This month's commentary focuses on New Jersey's Mount Laurel Doctrine, and discusses whether that affordable housing promise has been met 25 years later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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