Affordable housing units in the US are facing an expiration date

But that grace had an expiration date. For Maalouf and her family, 2020 has arrived.

The landlord, no longer legally required to keep the building affordable, raised the rent from $1,100 to $2,660 in 2021 — out of reach for Maalouf and her family. Maalouf’s nights are haunted by fears her years-long eviction battle will end in sleeping bags on a friend’s floor or worse.

As Americans continue to struggle with relentlessly high rents, as many as 223,000 affordable housing units like Maalouf’s across the U.S. could be ripped out from under them in the next five years alone.

It leaves low-income renters stuck facing protracted eviction battles, struggling to pay double the rent increase or more, or relegated to a housing market where costs can easily eat up half a paycheck.

Those affordable housing units were built with the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, or LIHTC, a federal program established in 1986 that provides tax credits to developers in exchange for keeping rents low. Since then, it has pumped out 3.6 million units and boasts more than half of all federally supported low-income housing nationwide.

“It’s the lifeblood of affordable housing development,” said Brian Rossbert, who heads Housing Colorado, an affordable housing advocacy organization.

That blood is not strictly red or blue. By combining social benefits with tax breaks and private ownership, the LIHTC enjoyed bipartisan support. Its expansion is now central to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ housing plan to build 3 million new homes.

Capture? Typically, buildings must be kept affordable for at least 30 years. For the LIHTC construction wave of the 1990s, those deadlines are arriving now, threatening to hemorrhage the supply of affordable housing when Americans need it most.

“If we lose homes that are currently affordable and available to households, then we lose ground on the crisis,” said Sarah Saadian, vice president of public policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

“It’s like having a boat with a hole in the bottom,” she said.

Not all expiring LIHTC units become market rate. Some are kept affordable by other government subsidies, benevolent landlords or states, including California, Colorado and New York, which have worked to keep them low, relying on several levers.

Local governments and nonprofits can buy up expiring apartments, new tax credits can be applied that expand affordability, or, as in Maalouf’s case, tenants can organize to try to force action from landlords and city officials.

These options face challenges. While new tax credits can recover a lapsed LIHTC property, they are limited, awarded to states by the Internal Revenue Service based on population. It’s also a tall order for local governments and nonprofits to shell out enough money to buy and keep expiring projects affordable. And there is little aggregate data about exactly when LIHTC units will lose affordability, making it difficult for policymakers and activists to fully prepare.

There is also less political incentive to preserve units.

“Politically, you get rewarded for an announcement, an innovation, a ribbon,” said Vicki Been, a New York University professor who previously served as New York City’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development.

“You don’t get rewarded for being a good steward of your assets and keeping track of everything and making sure you don’t lose any affordable housing units,” she said.

Maalouf stood in the courtyard of her apartment on a recent warm day, talking and waving to neighbors, a bracelet with a photograph of Che Guevarra dangling from her arm.

“Friendly,” is how Maalouf previously described her self, but not assertive. That is until rent increases pushed her before the Los Angeles City Council for the first time, sweating as she fought for her home.

Now an organizer at the LA Tenants Union, Maalouf isn’t afraid to speak out, but the anxiety over her home still keeps her up at night. In the mornings she repeats a mantra: “We are still here. We’re still here.” But fighting day in and day out to make it come true is exhausting.

Maalouf’s apartment was built before California made LIHTC contracts last 55 years instead of 30 in 1996. About 5,700 LIHTC units built during Maalouf’s time expire in the next decade. In Texas, there are 21,000 units.

When California Treasurer Fiona Ma took office in 2019, she steered the program toward developers committed to affordable housing rather than what she called “churn and burn,” buying up LIHTC properties and releasing them on market as soon as possible.

In California, landlords must notify state and local governments and tenants before their building expires. Housing organizations, nonprofits, and state or local governments first tried to buy the property to keep it affordable. Expiring developments are also prioritized for new tax credits, and the state essentially requires all LIHTC applicants to have experience owning and managing affordable housing.

“It eliminated people who weren’t interested in long-term affordable housing,” said Marina Wiant, executive director of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee.

But unlike California, some states have not extended LIHTC agreements beyond 30 years, much less taken other steps to keep expiring housing affordable.

Colorado, which has about 80,000 LIHTC units, passed a law this year that gives local governments the right of first refusal in hopes of preserving 4,400 units that will lose affordability protections over the next six years. The law also requires landlords to give state and local governments two years’ notice before they expire.

Still, local governments or nonprofits raising the funds to buy sizable apartment buildings is far from a guarantee.

Stories like Maalouf’s will continue as LIHTC units return, threatening to send low-income families back into the housing market. The median income of Americans living in these units was just $18,600 in 2021, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“This is like a math problem,” said Rossbert of Housing Colorado. “As soon as one of those units expires and converts to market rate and a household moves out, they become part of the need that drives the need for new construction.”

“It’s hard to break out of that cycle,” he said.

The Colorado Housing Agency works with groups across the state for conservation and has a fund to help. However, it’s unclear how many LIHTC units can be saved, in Colorado or across the country.

It’s really hard to know how many units are expiring nationally. An accurate accounting would require sorting through the constellation of municipal, state and federal grants, each with their own accessibility requirements and end dates.

That can put a wrench in the ability of policymakers and advocates to fully understand where and when many units will lose affordability, and then funnel resources to the right places, said Kelly McElwain, who manages and oversees National Housing Preservation Database. It is the most comprehensive aggregation of LIHTC data nationwide, but with all its gaps, it remains a rough estimate.

There are also fears that if states publicize their expiring LIHTC units, for-profit buyers with no interest in keeping them affordable would swoop in.

“It’s kind of this Catch-22 of trying to understand the problem and not put a big for sale sign in front of a property right before it expires,” Rossbert said.

Meanwhile, Maalouf’s tenant activism helped move the needle in Los Angeles. The city offered the owner $15 million to keep the building affordable through 2034, but that deal wouldn’t get rid of more than 30 pending eviction cases, including Maalouf’s, or $25,000 from the rent he owes.

In her yard, Maalouf’s niece, Rubie Caceres, mingled with a glass of water. She is 5 years old, but with special needs, her speech is more disconnected words than sentences.

“That’s why I hoped that everything would become normal again and she can be safe,” Maalouf said, his voice shaking with emotion. She urged her son to start saving money for the worst.

“We will continue to fight,” she said, “but day by day is hard.”

“I’m already tired.”