Faced with a past filled with mistakes and forgettable solutions to housing the nation’s poorest, some experts in the industry are taking a new approach to drawing attention to the problem: shifting the spotlight from poor families in need to moderate-income working families in need.

At a recent daylong event in Boston, officials from the Center for Housing Policy, a nonprofit research affiliate of the National Housing Conference, discussed a recently released report on housing problems affecting working-class families and how the Boston area is impacted, in addition to recommending a host of policy changes to address the crisis.

The conference was the final one in a national series that included gatherings in California and Minnesota as well.

“Boston is a most fortunate city. Its alignment with the new economy is second to none,” said Paul Grogan, vice president for government, community and public affairs at Harvard University and the conference’s keynote speaker. “But there’s a threat to our vitality, and that threat is the cost of housing.”

While more people are being attracted to the Boston area because of job opportunities, the cost of housing is beginning to drive some away, which demonstrates the housing market’s effect on the area’s economy, Grogan said.

“You’re in a community that shows exactly why we need to do more about housing,” he said.

But while affordable housing is recognized as something that is needed, Grogan said past experiences have led to a decline in the willingness to take action. “We used to spend about 3 percent of our state budget on housing. That’s down to less than 1 percent now,” he said.

“Housing programs for the needy have gained a bad reputation,” he said, referring to developments constructed under flawed concepts of affordable housing that have since been stigmatized. “In the realm of public housing, high-rise projects have come to symbolize the folly of government in affordable housing, and the folly of affordable housing itself.

“We have convinced ourselves that we don’t know what to do, and what we did in the past possibly made [the affordable housing crisis] worse,” he said. “Now we’ve come to the point where we don’t want to throw good money after the bad, and we need to rework that.”

According to Ann B. Schnare, president of the Center for Housing Policy, 13.7 million households nationwide, or 14 percent, had a critical housing need in 1997. Of those, 22 percent were moderate-income working families. Although the study cited figures from three years ago, Schnare said anecdotal evidence suggests the numbers have increased since then. The Center for Housing Policy terms moderate-income working families as households earning between $10,700, the equivalent of a full-time job at minimum wage, and 120 percent of the local median household income.

Schnare said she hoped the release of the housing study would also help dispel common stereotypes of people who benefit from affordable housing by demonstrating that moderate-income working families are also facing housing crises.

“They defy the stereotypes that accompany housing discussions in this country,” she said. Of the 3 million moderate-income working class families with critical housing needs, more than half are homeowners and nearly 30 percent are two-wage-earner households, the study found.

And though there is a stereotype that those with affordable housing needs predominantly are found in the city, Schnare’s study showed 43 percent of the working families in need live in the suburbs, the same percentage that live in urban neighborhoods. Fourteen percent live in non-metropolitan areas.

“It’s as equal in the suburbs as it is in the cities; this usually doesn’t come to mind,” Schnare said. “The demographics include teachers and firefighters. They’re the infrastructure of the community and they’re not being adequately housed.”

Biggest Problems
Schnare said the regions affected most by the housing crunch are the West and New England. “That’s where the biggest problems are,” she said. “There’s a correlation between high housing needs and high-growth areas. The West and New England are both centers in the new economy. [Housing] is a huge issue out in California, and I’m sure it’s a huge issue here.”

In 1998, one out of five working families in Boston had a critical housing need, Schnare reported. Of those, more than 17 percent paid more than 50 percent of their incomes toward housing.

“Boston has about double the rate of the country as a whole,” she said.

“Housing policies were originally designed to help the working poor, but now they’re focused only on the poorest of the poor … Families who work and play by the rules have to have access to affordable housing.”

To help solve the problem, the housing report calls on the strength of federal-level programs and money for projects, combined with the flexibility needed to apply programs to local situations.

“This is not happening at the national level and it needs to,” Schnare said. “Because problems vary from place to place, so must the solutions. Federal responses have to provide local flexibility.”

Among other recommendations, the report suggested providing incentives to local communities that relax zoning plans that act as obstacles to affordable housing and include more affordable housing in smart-growth development.

“We need more affordable housing in smart growth, or else it’s going to turn into dumb growth,” Schnare said.

Grogan stressed the need for local involvement in order for any proposed plan to be successful.

“Local involvement began around here about 15 or 20 years go,” he said, “and now the conditions of some of the neighborhoods is stunning as a result of local efforts of businesses and developers. When housing is part of a broader effort, it can be very appealing.”

Grogan used the former Columbia Point housing project in Dorchester as an example of a blighted development that was renovated, renamed Harbor Point, and is now home to upscale market-rate units as well as affordable housing.

“That was a big change, and it showed that public housing can be done differently in Boston,” he said. “We have to take responsibility for the things that don’t work and promote the things that are working.”