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
November 11, 2010
New forecasts for growth in population jobs and housing in the metro Washington region from now until 2040 were presented yesterday during a meeting of the COG...
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News
October 28, 2010
Livability is a broad concept – for a reason. Although Livability has specific targets in RF it can be influenced by a wide variety of factors – housing...
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News
October 26, 2010
As the foreclosure/mortgage debacle continues to unravel in the U.S. some are arguing that the engine for a potential recovery can be found in…housing? As...
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News
October 19, 2010
The recession seems to have accelerated a shift in housing preferences that was already underway among much of the American public and developers are...
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News
October 13, 2010
A regional foreclosure prevention group will establish a fund to provide support to housing counseling agencies in metropolitan Washington.