Yes, Transit Can Support Affordable Housing

Course Details

As cites, suburbs, and rural areas grow, they are challenged to provide affordable housing for individuals who are vital to a healthy economy — educators, first responders, service workers, and others. Current approaches to solving this problem are built around increasing the supply of housing through developer requirements or incentives, zoning changes, or ownership-assistance programs.

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) wanted to take a different approach and see where transit could be used to increase access to affordable housing, lessen the need for personal automobiles, or leverage resources to provide additional housing options. ODOT commissioned a study of the state's affordable housing landscape, drivers of the housing market, current research on the relationship between transit and housing, and best practices across North America. It resulted in creation of an interactive toolkit containing dozens of strategies to help Oregon's cities and municipalities make their communities more affordable.

Presenters share the results of this study, key takeaways, and implementation strategies for using transit to improve affordability.

Learning Outcomes

• Use current approaches to address challenges in addressing affordable housing.
• Discuss the research and best practices associated with using transit to address affordable housing in urban, suburban, rural, and tribal communities.
• Use different strategies to improve affordable housing supply and overall community affordability by leverage the transit system's resources.