Steady job growth and excellent schools are among the features that have made metropolitan Washington a desirable place to live, spurring high home values and encouraging the creation of expensive new developments. This has put enormous pressure on local governments striving to shape communities where all citizens of all ages can afford to live.
COG shares housing data, best practices, and tools to help encourage the production and preservation of housing affordable to low and moderate-income residents who may not be well-served by the existing housing market. Through strategic partnerships, COG and its members build greater awareness of the region's housing affordability needs. In late 2018, COG launched its Regional Housing Initiative to determine what it would take to increase housing beyond what is currently forecast to provide enough housing for the region’s growing workforce. In 2019, officials adopted three regional housing targets to address this challenge.
It is not enough to just increase the amount of housing our region produces, however. Equally important is ensuring that growth is equitable and results in integrated neighborhoods in metropolitan Washington. COG works to support local governments in meeting their obligation to affirmatively further fair housing choice so that as the region grows, all residents can choose to live in healthy, affordable homes with access to transit, jobs, and quality educational opportunities.
COG also supports the most severe housing needs of the region's residents—individuals and families experiencing homelessness. COG, area governments, and homeless services providers seek regional solutions to ensure that the experience of homelessness is brief, rare, and one time only.
News & Multimedia
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News
August 24, 2011
Housing in America is undergoing a transformation. Lifestyle priorities and a renewed interest in urban walkable areas are making sprawling far-flung homes less...
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News
July 15, 2011
We have a feeling that you may find yourself waiting in a very long line today or sometime this weekend (there’s some major movie thing going on) so today’s...
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News
July 14, 2011
Preservation is one of the best ways to increase the supply of affordable transit-oriented housing in a super high-price market like metro Washington....
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News
July 5, 2011
What originally began as GreenHOME whose mission was to make affordable housing and its neighborhoods green has evolved into Greenspace NCR with the mission of...
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News
June 28, 2011
While The Yardstick has urged against hasty spending cuts for the sake of spending cuts in the past it’s clear that as a country we have to make some tough...