Doing Housing Policy: Charting a Path Forward for Housing Implementation Research

Since the 1970s, American housing policy has moved away from direct service and toward programs that leverage markets. A great deal of research has examined this shift, but only a small fraction has focused on the problem of implementation. In this article, we discuss the “noncollaborative collaborations” necessitated by market-based housing policy. Specifically, we discuss issues of market distortion, supply-side incentives, inframarginal targeting, and predatory inclusion as core. We conclude with an agenda for the next 100 years of social work and social policy research.