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
September 12, 2018
The region needs to increase the number of planned housing units by over 100,000 homes between now and 2045 to sustain economic growth and improve quality of...
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News
July 11, 2018
COG has developed a mapping application that looks at job and residential patterns, including who currently lives near their jobs and who lives further away,...
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News
May 9, 2018
According to a 2018 report by COG, there are 10,480 persons experiencing homelessness in the area—a 6 percent decrease (or 648 people) from 2017. The report,...
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News
October 17, 2017
For nearly a decade, home-sharing platforms have enticed an increasing number of property owners to offer short-term rentals. Most of these rentals have...