ABSTRACT
This chapter frames the overall context for the rest of the book in context by summarizing key trends and patterns in the housing market. It traces housing construction trends over time, examines the nation’s major housing problems, with particular attention to housing affordability and homelessness, and summarizes changes over time in federal expenditures on housing assistance. Special attention is paid to the rise and subsequent collapse of the housing “bubble” that dominated the housing market from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s.
