The rehabilitation of the country's aging housing stock is a major resource for meeting the Nation's affordable housing needs. Large numbers of communities recognize this and use HUD, as well as other public and private resources, to address their affordable housing needs. These communities do this because of the demonstrated economic and social benefits of rehabilitation. Despite the demonstrated benefits of rehabilitation, there is potential for even greater use of existing stock, not only to address affordable housing needs, but also to promote broader community revitalization goals. However, there has been a lack of in-depth research on the factors that act as barriers to rehabilitation of affordable housing. Gaining a sound understanding of the issue is difficult because barriers vary from project to project and from community to community.
To address these concerns, HUD entered into a cooperative agreement with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to examine the major barriers to urban rehabilitation. The project's research team reviewed relevant literature, conducted case studies, and convened study groups of highly-qualified real estate developers, nonprofit leaders, architects and other professional who face barriers to affordable housing rehabilitation in their "real world" experiences. Volume I provide the context of the study as well as a synthesis of finding and technical analysis. Volume II presents the case studies in detail.
