Affordable Housing Development: Policy, Finance, and Practice

(2 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The United States is facing a profound affordable housing crisis, driven by rising costs, limited supply, policy constraints, and increasing economic inequality. This course examines the systems, tools, and stakeholders involved in addressing affordable housing at a national scale, with particular emphasis on finance and policy mechanisms such as the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and other programs widely used across U.S. markets. Puerto Rico serves as a living laboratory and microcosm of these challenges, where issues of affordability, resilience, and recovery are intensified by economic and environmental conditions. The island has implemented a wide range of housing policies and financing tools, making it an ideal setting to study how these strategies operate in practice. While grounded in the Puerto Rican context, the course emphasizes how these frameworks, constraints, and development approaches are directly applicable across the United States. The course culminates in an immersive field experience in Puerto Rico over fall break, where students analyze an active development project and deliver a final, graded presentation to industry and community stakeholders.