(Created for housing and community stakeholders by Erik Kingston, PCED, IHFA’s Housing Resources Coordinator | Links to presentations below)

Expanding housing choice has benefits far beyond fair housing compliance and civil rights; housing diversity is equally important for community and economic development strategies. Housing types and price points that reflect the needs and incomes of all community residents support a more stable labor force and educational system, reduce social costs of poverty, and lead to economic prosperity for all of us.

Conversely, housing speculation and inflation that drive prices up and tenants out —magnified by NIMBY opposition to residential development—create externalized costs that are shifted to local taxpayers, employers, consumers and communities. A lack of housing within reach of workers drives demand for wage increases and leads to business contraction and overall inflation.

Housing that is affordable to a range of incomes serves as a perpetual wage subsidy to local employers. — Dr. Peter Dreier

Housing can be made affordable one of two ways:

Increase wages indefinitely to subsidize real estate speculation—this in turn fuels overall inflation in goods and services
Increase taxes to subsidize employer and consumer costs—through housing choice vouchers and development incentives that keep rents low for essential workers (who do not earn a living wage)

Beyond speculation and NIMBY, the net costs of housing are influenced by transportation, energy, land, construction, regulatory and financing factors. In some rural Idaho communities, workers must often commute long distances to find housing within their budget, while the cost to heat or cool inefficient housing can exceed rent in some cases. So we created the ‘T.R.U.V. (Transportation + Rent + Utilities +Visitability) Index’ to reflect real-world cost considerations.

We hope to update and expand these resources to be more useful to local and state policy makers and housing stakeholders. These data can help inform a larger statewide housing needs assessment and resource allocation process. See also “What cities and counties should know about fair housing ‘ for additional information from the 2022 Analysis of Impediments.

Assessing Housing Markets Needs

Housing Market Overview Idaho > Current Version
Workforce Housing Business Leader Survey 2023
Housing-Needs-Assessment

County data sets for demographics, poverty and housing/transportation cost burden.

*The contractor for the 2014 version based ‘cost-burden’ data on the American Community Survey, while the contractor for the 2018 release used cost-burden estimates from HAMFI and CHAS data, a subset of the ACS estimate.

Other online housing resources

Idaho Analysis of Impediments / Assessment of Fair Housing

U.S. housing market: impressions, impacts and implications

Housing Market Challenges