Welcome to the Equitable Housing Institute 

“Housing is a necessary of life.”
United States Supreme Court
Block v. Hirsch, 256 U.S. 135, 156 (1921)
(per Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.)

 Featured Articles

 

New EHI report addresses fundamental right to establish a home

As the quotation above demonstrates, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that housing is a necessity of life. That view is fully consistent with public opinion in the United States and around the world.

But do Americans have a fundamental right under American law to the opportunity for adequate housing? Actually, they do, on a number of grounds—although the judicial precedents bear some explanation. EHI summarizes several of those grounds in its December 2025  report, The fundamental right to establish a home. 

The Supreme Court has declared numerous times that the Constitution protects all those liberties “long recognized . . . as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free [people]”—including the right to “establish a home and bring up children.” Those rights are protected through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court has ruled that such a Constitutional right does not entitle a person to government assistance in fulfilling it, but that it protects the person’s efforts to fulfill it from unwarranted government interference.

A recent law review article is the first comprehensive analysis of that fundamental right. John G. Sprankling, The Constitutional Right to “Establish a Home,” 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 632 (2022). The article concludes, based on Supreme Court precedent, that a zoning regulation infringes on that right when it “imposes a serious financial burden on the exercise of the right.”

The historic roots of the right to establish a home extend back to the nation’s founding and beyond, as the Sprankling article explains. EHI’s report adds to his brief discussion of the significance of 17th Century British philosopher John Locke, who was considered the most authoritative exponent of natural rights by our nation’s Founders.

Another basis for banning exclusionary zoning and other regulatory barriers to housing opportunities is that they exceed the regulatory authority of government (the “police power”), as EHI's report explains. The highest courts of numerous states have declared those practices unlawful under the state’s constitution, its Zoning Enabling Act, or both. 

EHI’s report also summarizes how its proposed Economic Fair Housing Act (EFHA) would ban those barriers comprehensively and give low- and moderate-income people a direct, economically feasible means of having those barriers removed. Again, the link to EHI's report is: The fundamental right to establish a home.

 EHI Letter in Washington Post questions

assertion that housing crisis

is solving itself

 EHI’s letter commenting on the prospects for eliminating housing shortages in the United States, was printed in The Washington Post on September 12, 2025 (p. A18). It also was posted online, with hyperlinks to sources, at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/11/housing-crisis-crime/.

The letter responded to a Post op-ed, “Forget YIMBY. The housing shortage is solving itself,” Wash. Post, A18 (Sept. 4, 2025), posted at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/01/construction-housing-affordability-yimby-zoning/. The op-ed was written by a blogger named Robert Showah, whose background in housing policy was not stated. EHI’s letter follows.

Robert Showah’s Sept. 4 op-ed said estimates show that the United States “will supply enough units to bring down prices and resolve the housing crisis” by 2030.

 

However, if high housing costs continue indefinitely, housing production will not catch up to the true, underlying demand in 2030 or beyond. So the effects of the nation’s overall housing supply will continue to be widespread, not just isolated and “local” as the op-ed suggested.

 

Redfin estimated that by 2030, housing costs could return to the “normal” of 2018 if home-price growth stabilizes and mortgage rates fall to 5.5 percent. But that year, housing inflation was well above overall core inflation. There was a deepening undersupply of housing and a rise in homelessness. It was hardly an affordable market for low- and moderate-income Americans.

 

And what would it take to stabilize home-price growth? Even assuming the predicted, fairly robust housing production and demographic changes happen, more will be needed. Housing experts recognize that the United States will be prevented from building its way out of the housing crisis by the ever-increasing number and effects of local regulatory barriers unless they are brought under control.

 

Thomas A. Loftus, Vienna
The writer is president of the Equitable Housing Institute.

For another analysis of the Post op-ed, please see housing expert Alan Mallach’s comments below.

EHI’s original letter contained some nuances that were not in the published version, as EHI needed to respond quickly to the Post’s edited version. For EHI’s original version and related analysis, please click on EHI response to Post “Forget YIMBY” op-ed.

Housing expert Alan Mallach gives EHI views

on Post op-ed and future

supply/demand imbalances 

Housing policy expert Alan Mallach commented for EHI on the ”Forget YIMBY” op-ed discussed above, at the request of EHI Advisory Committee member and retired judge Peter Buchsbaum. Mr. Mallach is a senior fellow at the National Housing Institute and the Center for Community Progress. He is the author of many works on housing and planning and has taught at numerous colleges and universities. He was the director of housing and development for Trenton, New Jersey, 1990-1999.

Mr. Mallach concludes that whatever minor easing of housing cost burdens may happen by 2030 won’t be enough to significantly change the current situation. He believes that the op-ed’s apparent assumption that the number of Baby Boomers moving out of their homes represents a net addition to the housing stock is incorrect, because most Boomers will be moving into other housing units. Mr. Mallach also notes that construction volumes actually are not going up, contrary to the op-ed's suggestion. Both the National Association of Home Builders and the Census Bureau found that starts in 2024 were slightly lower, not higher, than in 2023.

Over a much longer term, Mr. Mallach thinks the contours of the housing crisis likely will change dramatically. An overall surplus of housing is likely (probably mid-century or beyond), due to declining birth rates, population and household formation rates—especially if immigration continues to be curtailed as it is now.

But even then, there may not be a surplus in the highest-demand areas, because of internal migration from other parts of the nation. And significant price drops will not happen without destabilizing events such as massive foreclosures or bankruptcies.

Further, whatever overall surplus occurs, it won't solve the problems of low and moderate income renters, in Mr. Mallach’s view. He points to the structural gap between what they can afford and what it costs a landlord to deliver a minimally code-compliant housing unit to a tenant. He believes there is no realistic way to meet the housing needs of the tens of millions of Americans in that situation without some form of public subsidy.

Will the second Trump Administration take actions that advance EHI’s AGENDA?

Two of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promises in 2024 may advance EHI’s agenda—which is to increase the housing supply where it’s needed, by eliminating regulatory barriers to housing affordability. First, Trump has vowed to eliminate regulations that drive up housing costs. Second, he has promised to open up some tracts of federal land for housing construction.

EHI’s report discusses key issues concerning those promises. As to regulatory costs, escalating land costs deserve special attention, along with the exclusionary zoning and non-zoning regulations that are responsible for that high inflation.

Other prime targets for regulatory reform include the high costs often imposed on housing developments by upfront impact fees. There are feasible alternatives to those fees, such as bond financing—which allows repayment by the new homeowners over a period of years (as much as 20 years or more) for the public costs of purchasing the bonds.

There may be numerous opportunities to open up surplus federal properties for residential use—including obsolete federal buildings in heavily populated areas. But there also are serious limits to the amounts and locations of such surplus properties.

To read EHI’s full report, please click on Second Trump term and housing.