Mayor Alyia Gaskins today announced that the City of Alexandria is among the first U.S. local governments selected for Bloomberg Philanthropies new housing initiative, one of up to 30 who will receive funding and expertise to unlock supply for residents.

"Alexandria is committed to expanding housing options for all our residents with everything that requires: creating the systems to speed and digitize permitting, and bringing every part of local government together to get the job done." said Mayor Alyia Gaskins "This Bloomberg Philanthropies initiative adds to the many ways I am pushing us to lead with innovation, and it will accelerate our One Start initiative and Housing 2040 Plan so that we can deliver quickly on resident housing needs." 

As America confronts a severe shortage of homes, and Washington responds with its first comprehensive housing legislation in decades, the Bloomberg Philanthropies effort will move three of the nation’s most effective local housing solutions from the city halls that pioneered them – Atlanta, Austin, and San Diego – to up to 30 more across the country. 

“City halls are taking local action to increase the housing supply and ease the shortage that is driving up rents and leaving the dream of home ownership out of reach,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies and three-term mayor of New York City. “As local governments address this issue, we have a great opportunity to spread the best ideas across the country. That is what this initiative is all about: helping more mayors adopt proven ways of getting more housing built—and delivering.”

After more than a decade of underbuilding, the country faces a housing shortfall that reaches nearly every region and income level. Construction of starter homes—those under 1,400 square feet—has collapsed from more than a third of new single-family building in the 1970s to roughly one in ten today. Some 8.1 million families now share a home with people outside their household because they cannot find another within their means. For the lowest-income renters, just 35 affordable homes exist for every 100 who need one.

The pattern repeats in community after community: rent growth outrunning wages growth, commutes lengthening, and home ownership arriving later in life—if it arrives at all. Much of what drives the crisis—rising rents, interest rates, construction costs, land prices—sits beyond any one jurisdiction’s control. But the levers local government does hold are among the most consequential: what may be built, where it may be built, and how quickly it is approved. Several U.S. mayors have pulled those levers with striking results, and their examples help answer how more housing in America actually gets built. That broader effort is gaining backing from private companies, civic associations, and nonprofits. This commitment from Bloomberg Philanthropies joins them with the best of what municipal innovation offers: the means to take the headway city halls have already made much further.

The new initiative is anchored in three local government models: speeding and digitizing permitting, from San Diego, CA; expanding Accessory Dwelling Units, from Austin, TX; and housing strike force teams, from Atlanta, GA.

• In San Diego, CA, where the median home now costs more than $1 million and just 17% of households can afford one, city hall fast-tracked building applications reviews through digitization after Mayor Gloria signed an executive order setting a 30-day limit on approvals. Homes cleared for construction jumped 82% in one year, the most since 2005, a pace that held with nearly 8,800 permitted the year following.
• After a decade in Austin, TX, in which rents climbed faster than almost anywhere in the country, Mayor Kirk Watson and Austin City Council legalized up to three homes on most single-family lots, including backyard and other accessory units, and shrank minimum parcels from 5,750 to 1,800 square feet. Roughly 120,000 have gone up since 2015, and the city has become one of the only major markets where rents have fallen since the pandemic.
• In Atlanta, GA, where the typical household would need more than half its income to cover the median rent, Mayor Andre Dickens pulled every agency leader with a hand in housing into one unit under his Chief Housing Officer, aimed at dislodging stalled projects. Their work put more than 2,000 affordable units back in motion, with upwards of 14,000 now built or underway, over halfway to the city’s 20,000-home goal, and ahead of pace.

The City of Alexandria will receive $450,000 to $750,000 in funding—for piloting technology to clear approvals, engaging architects to draft permit-ready plans, and hiring strike team staff—as well as expert operational support to implement quickly, delivered with Accelerator for America and other field-leading specialists, such as Public Digital. City of Alexandria officials will also network with their peers, sharing what is succeeding on the ground and strengthening their plans with the officials furthest ahead on housing solutions nationwide.

Within two years, Alexandria will produce results: cutting approval timelines in half, doubling pipelines of Accessory Dwelling Units, and posting gains on citywide supply. The effort also aims to position Alexandria and fellow participants to capitalize on federal policy. The ROAD to Housing Act creates new incentives for these same reforms—modernized permitting, pre-approved housing plans, activated public land—and rewards the localities prepared to carry them out. That readiness is what the initiative helps mayors build: plans on paper, policy in place, and staff to execute when national investment arrives.

“Bloomberg Philanthropies has spent years betting on local government as the place where real problems get solved, and this partnership puts that belief directly to work on housing,” said Mary Ellen Wiederwohl, President and CEO of Accelerator for America. “With this support, Accelerator for America gets to do what we do best: help more mayors put proven tools to work in their own cities – building the homes our communities desperately need — and creating national change from the ground up.”

The initiative, part of the organization’s longstanding Government Innovation portfolio, will be housed within its Bloomberg Cities Idea Exchange, the first effort of its kind moving what works in one municipality to where it is needed next. More than 1,000 city halls from 95 countries—serving over 745 million residents—take part in the Idea Exchange today, with nearly 200 replications complete or underway.