Breaking Out of the Housing Trap: Insights from Strong Towns
- Housing Opportunities Made Easier
- Nov 4
- 3 min read
At the 2025 HOME Conference, Chris Allen of Strong Towns inspired attendees to rethink how communities plan, build, and fund housing. His presentation, “Breaking Out of the Housing Trap,” explored how traditional development patterns — focused on large-scale, car-dependent projects — have left cities struggling with affordability, sustainability, and community connection.
The Housing Trap
“Housing can’t be both a good investment and broadly affordable,” Allen described as the “housing trap”. Pre-Great Depression housing was financed by local banks, typically at 50% equity, for 5 years with a balloon payment. Over the next several decades, federal programs aimed to make it easier for more people to borrow more money to pay more for housing. Subsequently, housing, or rather the attached 30-year mortgage, became an investment product accounting for 20% of national GDP. Capital is concentrated on standard single-family and large multi-family units, leaving the in-between missing-middle housing with little funding.
Many cities, he explained, have unintentionally designed themselves into this trap by prioritizing the short-term returns of rapid growth, exclusionary zoning, and overreliance on top-down funding over incremental development, long-term financial resilience, and livability. The result: housing that’s too expensive, neighborhoods that lack diversity in home types, and communities unable to adapt to changing needs.
A Path Toward Incremental Change
Allen’s message emphasized that the solutions to the housing crisis won’t come from massive, one-time projects. Instead, they’ll come from thousands of small actions — from homeowners, small developers, and local governments — working together to make communities more adaptable and resilient. “Every city can be housing-ready,” he said. “It starts by making small, legal, and practical changes that allow people to meet their own housing needs.”
Communities can escape the housing trap through:
Code reform - allow more flexibility in size, type, and location of housing. Strong Town’s Housing-Ready City Toolkit addresses these reforms
Incremental developers - grow an ecosystem of small and mid-sized local developers using local labor
Localize finance - encourage financial products and programs geared toward local needs, such as micro-grants, co-signatures, and tax-increment financing.
The Housing-Ready City Toolkit
Strong Towns’ Housing-Ready City Toolkit offers a roadmap for communities ready to take action. It outlines six key policy shifts that can help cities in Ventura County create more attainable, people-focused housing options:
Allow Single-Family Home Conversion to Duplex or Triplex, by Right: Empower homeowners to increase housing supply within existing neighborhoods.
Permit Backyard Cottages in All Residential Zones: Encourage accessory dwelling units (ADUs) that offer affordable options for families, caregivers, and young residents
Legalize Starter Homes in All Residential Zones: Support smaller, entry-level homes that serve first-time buyers and middle-income families.
Eliminate Minimum Lot Size Requirements in Existing Neighborhoods: Remove barriers that limit density and affordability while preserving community character.
Repeal Parking Mandates for Housing: Lower construction costs and allow land to be used for people, not cars.
Streamline the Approval Process: Reduce red tape to make housing development faster, fairer, and more predictable.
Together, these reforms help local leaders move from restrictive policies toward practical, flexible solutions that make housing more attainable — without compromising neighborhood integrity.
Key Takeaways
Incremental change can unlock affordability and adaptability.
Local governments hold the keys to meaningful reform.
Reducing zoning and permitting barriers empowers residents to help meet demand.
The path to affordability begins locally with small, replicable actions.
Learn More
Explore the full resource at Strong Towns: The Housing-Ready City Toolkit for practical steps, model ordinances, and examples from across the country (www.strongtowns.org/housingready)
Closing Thought
Breaking out of the housing trap means doing more with what we already have — the homes, neighborhoods, and people that make up our communities. By embracing these practical reforms, Ventura County can move closer to a future where housing is a possibility for all.
Housing Opportunities Made Easier (HOME)
PO Box 191, Camarillo, CA 93011
Phone: (805) 323-6534
Email: info@vchome.org