National Journal talks with Professor Ingrid Gould Ellen about Housing Subsidies – and Airbnb

In an interview with the National Journal, NYU Wagner Professor Ingrid Gould Ellen discusses innovative ways in which traditional housing subsidies for the poor, like Section 8, could potentially be used to help a much larger number of low-income families.

"We live in a world where three-fourths of eli­gible house­holds in the U.S. don’t re­ceive any hous­ing sub­sidies due to lack of re­sources," says Professor Ellen, faculty director of the NYU Furman Center For Real Estate and Urban Policy, a leading academic center established by the School of Law and Wagner. "The idea is to make sub­sidy dol­lars stretch fur­ther with shar­ing."

One possible model for this kind of change? Airbnb, says Professor Ellen.