The Crowdfunding Fix for Housing
Consider three facts about the U.S. housing crisis rarely viewed side by side:
As of 2025, approximately 7.1 million extremely low-income renter households in the United States lack access to affordable and available housing. (Source: National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2025)
The total housing shortage in the United States is estimated to be 4.7 million units. (Source: Zillow, 2025)
According to the Federal Reserve, there are approximately 15.4 million vacant housing units in the United States. (Source: FRED, 2025)
In other words…the United States has more than enough vacant housing to meet today’s housing needs. All we need is the right combination of capital, mindful developers, and public policies to acquire, improve, and reopen vacant properties.
Why aren’t we doing this? Because a growing number of well-intentioned politicians are fixated on the “Abundance” agenda and deregulating developers willy-nilly.
This week’s issue of The Main Street Journal is filled with small success stories that, if scaled up by community capital, could really fix the nation’s housing shortage. Our first story, from Sandra Larson in Shelterforce, shows how multiple communities have used grassroots investment to convert vacant homes into beautiful new residences. The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, for example, has raised $5.4 million in investment to supplement $25 million in grants and low-interest loans, to provide cooperative housing to 50 residents of Oakland. Similar initiatives are happening in Holyoke (MA), Traverse City (MI), and Atlanta (GA).
Our next story analyzes opportunities for expanding housing in Baltimore by redeveloping its 12,382 structures. Almost two-thirds of these properties are being held by owners for speculation. By increasing assessment values or moving to a land tax (taxing the land but not the structures on it), the city could put pressure on speculators to sell.
Another story highlights the innovative investors now prepared to buy these structures in Baltimore to create viable mixed-use corridors. Innovation Works, run by Jay Nwachu, is investing in entrepreneurs and real estate by mixing local investment with support from the City, JPMorgan Chase, and the West North Avenue Development Authority.
Paying subscribers will also find three other stories of interest:
How “Trump accounts” disproportionately help wealthy families, while Connecticut’s Baby Bonds are narrowing the state’s yawning racial wealth gap.
How Mad Capital aims to convert 5 million acres of farmland into regenerative and organic farming.
How various impact investors have supported the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s expansion of Cairnspring Mills, a Washington-based craft flour producer.
If you want to read all our stories and you’re not a paying subscriber, please click on the first button below. Many thanks!
— Michael Shuman, Publisher
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SPONSOR CORNER
The National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3) is dedicated to educating, advocating, and activating community capital and serves as MSJ’s fiscal sponsor. Thank you for being a part of a growing movement! Contact NC3 for support in integrating local investing in your work: info@nc3now.org.
NC3 UPDATES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
NC3 was busy and on the road last week, joining a remarkable group of community advocates from around the country at the Neighborhood Economics Conference in Chicago. Together on the stage with The Main Street Journal’s Michael Shuman, NC3 CEO Chris Miller discussed the growing use of the Diversified Community Investment Fund (DCIF) being piloted by NC3 in communities in Rhode Island, Ohio, and Michigan, with another 10 states in the official NC3 Accelerator Program or in the pipeline.
Michael and Chris were joined on stage with on-the-ground practitioners Derek Peebles from the Common Good Alliance in Cincinnati, OH, and Real Estate Developer Brent Forsberg, who is leading an exciting project in SW Lansing, MI, that will be funded by a DCIF launching as the Lansing Growth Fund. The Lansing fund will start capital raising in the next 45 days, with Cincinnati looking at a likely launch in Q1 of 2026. Retail/Non-accredited investors will be welcomed in both funds, in particular those stakeholders impacted by the projects, as well as aligned investors from across the country.
