By Benjamin Litchfield
GUEST OPINION
Many families in Virginia spend more than half of their income on housing. According to the Brookings Institution, some households allocate up to 60 percent of their earnings to rent or mortgage payments, leaving little for food, healthcare, transportation, or other essentials. These cost-burdened households highlight that housing affordability is not solely about increasing supply, it requires targeted support to ensure families can actually live in the homes we build.
As someone who cares deeply about affordable housing, I was encouraged to see Abigail Spanberger announce a series of policies to address Virginia’s worsening housing crisis. Her plan is a characteristic blend of practicality and empathy: supply-side incentives, regulatory reforms, affordability safeguards, and anti-displacement strategies. If implemented with strong oversight and clear accountability, it promises both immediate relief and durable systemic change.
Yet even a strong plan can be made stronger. Several areas deserve further attention if Virginia is to achieve lasting housing affordability.
Focus on Families Most Burdened by Housing Costs
Even with significant gains in supply, families spending 50 to 60 percent of income on housing will continue to face impossible tradeoffs. They often sacrifice food, healthcare, transportation, and childcare to pay the rent. The plan should include tools that reach these households directly: deeper rental assistance, income-tied subsidies, and flexible emergency aid to prevent eviction or foreclosure. Without such measures, some of the most vulnerable families will remain at risk.
Rehabilitation with Health and Climate in Mind
Virginia’s older housing stock, urban and rural alike, carries high rates of deferred maintenance, energy inefficiency, and health hazards such as lead-based paint and asbestos. Rural localities also struggle with vacant and deteriorating properties that contribute to blight. State-level initiatives could fill gaps left by federal programs such as forgivable repair loans, weatherization tax credits, and whole-home rehabilitation grants. Rehabilitation should also be paired with climate resilience, including flood protection, electrification readiness, and utility-bill reduction.
Unlocking Manufactured Housing’s Potential
Manufactured homes are the nation’s largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing and comprise a substantial share of Virginia’s rural housing stock. Yet structural barriers limit their promise. Because many are titled as personal property, owners often rely on short-term, higher-cost loans with fewer consumer protections. Virginia can address this by:
Encouraging reclassification of eligible homes as real property to expand access to traditional mortgages.
Creating safe, fixed-rate loan products through Virginia Housing and CDFI partners.
Updating titling, appraisal, and installation standards to support mainstream underwriting.
Many manufactured homes sit in land-leased communities where residents own the home but not the land, leaving them vulnerable to predatory practices by some private owners, especially private equity firms. In fact, one private equity CEO compared owning a community to “owning a Waffle House where customers are chained to their booths.”
Alternative ownership models, such as resident-owned communities (ROCs), can stabilize costs and build community wealth, but they require acquisition capital, technical assistance, and transaction support. A state ROC fund—paired with predevelopment grants and housing counseling—would encourage more widespread adoption.
Strengthening Down Payment Assistance and Homebuyer Readiness
Down payment assistance remains one of the most effective tools for bridging the gap between the ability to pay a mortgage and the ability to save enough to purchase a home. Virginia already offers strong programs but scaling them would be transformative. Priorities should include larger benefits for first-generation buyers and veterans, stronger pairing with federal products such as FHA, VA, and USDA loans, matched-savings programs, and outreach in rural and underserved regions. These measures would ensure that more families can navigate and combine assistance effectively.
Confronting Financialization
Investor ownership – private equity control of multifamily properties and large-scale single-family rental portfolios – raises prices, reduces options for potential owner-occupants, and extracts wealth from communities. It also contributes to the ongoing housing crisis because investors have fewer incentives to work with struggling renters to keep them in their homes.
A comprehensive state response could include first-look or first-offer programs for nonprofits and localities, limits on bulk foreclosure purchases, tax preferences for owner-occupant buyers, and transparency requirements on beneficial ownership. Tenant protections to curb excessive fees and sudden rent spikes are also essential.
Protecting Tenants
Beyond addressing financialization, the plan could do more to strengthen tenant protections across Virginia. Families in gentrifying neighborhoods, older apartment buildings, or rent-regulated units face the constant risk of displacement, sudden rent increases, with limited recourse in eviction proceedings.
Policies such as enhanced eviction prevention programs, temporary rent stabilization measures, and stronger enforcement of habitability standards would help ensure that the benefits of new housing supply reach existing residents, not just incoming buyers.
Protecting tenants from predatory practices, while preserving affordability in the rental market, is important for equitable outcomes and for maintaining the social fabric of communities across the Commonwealth.
Accountability Matters
Spanberger’s emphasis on local flexibility is welcome, but carrots alone may not deliver equitable outcomes everywhere. The Commonwealth should set clear performance targets—covering production, preservation, and eviction prevention—condition certain funding on progress, and publish transparent dashboards so residents can track results. Accountability is what will ensure promises on paper translate into change on the ground.
Bottom line: Spanberger’s platform is a thoughtful start. By adding deep affordability tools, a rehabilitation strategy tied to health and climate goals, manufactured-housing finance and tenure reforms, scaled downpayment assistance, and safeguards against financialization—backed by measurable targets—Virginia can make real headway on housing affordability that lasts.
Benjamin M. Litchfield lives in Stafford, Virginia. He is a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C. where he specializes in federal banking, consumer protection, and housing law. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of the author’s employer or any organization with which he may be affiliated.
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