The devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita illustrates
both the importance and the fragility of housing. These tragedies also
offer a chance to develop housing policies that promote opportunity,
not only for those directly affected by the hurricanes, but for all
Americans. Housing can offer safety, stability, and the prospect of
a better future. Yet today housing remains a source of stress for millions
of Americans, including the homeless, low- and middle-income Americans
spending extraordinary proportions of their income on housing, and families
isolated in neighborhoods with poor schools, inadequate infrastructure,
and few economic prospects. Government can do more to support housing's
role as a source of security and opportunity by regulating and financing
construction and by assisting individual renters and homeowners. New
Vision offers a next generation of pragmatic and empirically informed
policy solutions to the range of housing policy challenges facing Americans
today.