These numbers

are daunting. They are the statistical manifestation of a very real housing

shortage that affects the daily quality of life for millions of Americans.

Two factors

are contributing most to this growing problem.

First isa significant

increase in population. The recent Census reports that 1.35 million households

were formed in this country every year during the last decade. That's

200,000 more households per year than previously believed.

Those new households

need housing. To keep up with the underlying demand, we need to build

about 1.6 million new homes and apartment units each year.

The second

factor is the resistance to construction of new multifamily housing. This

is a national trend, and it is having a significant impact on the supply

of housing available for low-income families.

The now-familiar

term is "NIMBY" ­ Not In My Back Yard.

Environmentalists,

home builders, advocates for the poor and homeless, and urban planners

all agree on one aspect of growth policy ­ that is the need to construct

more housing in our cities and inner suburbs.

The only people

who don't agree with this strategy are the home owners who live near any

proposed new housing development. The problem is that individual resistance

to rental and other multifamily housing presents a formidable barrier.

Those barriers often cause the home builder to look elsewhere, and that

means housing that is affordable to low-income families often does not

get built.

Another term

we1re hearing more and more is "snob zoning." Local governments,

often pressured by their constituents, are adopting zoning patterns that

greatly restrict where and how much multifamily housing can be built.

Put these factors

together ­ a burgeoning population, a decreasing supply of low-income

rental units, local governments that adopt zoning plans that restrict

multifamily development, and neighborhood activists who fight new development

­ and it's not hard to see why it is increasingly difficult for low-income

families to find adequate housing.

The answer

to this nation1s housing crisis is for all of the stakeholders in this

process to do their part.

That means

the home builders must be willing to invest in the cities and inner suburban

markets. Cities and counties must be willing to accommodate new residential

development. Financial institutions must be willing to create financing

that promotes infill development and other smart growth. State and federal

legislators must be willing to write laws that provide incentives to local

governments that permit infill development, and disincentives to snob

zoning and other policies that make it easy for cities and counties to

reject the infill and multifamily development that is needed to ease this

housing crisis.

There are solutions.

But to get from here to there, we will need creativity, cooperation and,

perhaps most important, the political will to make the right decisions.

(John Hayes,

who is with Torrey Homes, is president of the Home Builders Association

of Midwest Georgia, which serves a membership of approximately 460 builders

and associate members in Fayette, Coweta, Spalding, Heard and Meriwether

counties.)

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