Employer Assisted Housing (EAH)
In an EAH program, an employer decides to put in place programs that help employees find suitable, affordable housing in or near the community in which the employer is based. Employers with housing assistance programs are finding that employees stay longer, miss less time from work, are late less often, and are more productive. Employees also benefit from the lower costs of getting to work, in some cases saving the cost of an additional car; from having more free time for their families and community activities because of less time spent in commuting; and, for some employees, having the first-time ability to buy a house. For a community, programs that enable employees to live closer to where they work improve the jobs-housing balance, which in most communities has become out of balance, as employees are forced to commute further and further away from their jobs for affordable housing. By enabling employees to live closer to where they work, a community can reduce traffic and air pollution (as fewer people need to commute long distances from home to work), create more pedestrian activity in downtown business districts, and increase the tax base through investment in housing near business districts.
EAH programs can be used to improve the range of housing choices or help employees buy existing housing, or a combination of both. Examples of strategies used by employers include employer direct assistance with a downpayment and closing costs and an employer matching program in which the employer matches employees’ savings to help them accumulate a downpayment for a house. A number of large employers can come together to create an EAH program (for example, the REACH program in Lexington, Kentucky). Some states offer tax credits and matching funds as an incentive for investing in employer-assisted housing. Another incentive is the creation of a local or regional housing fund that can be used to work with employers to match downpayment assistance (for example, the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, created by the Minneapolis Twin Cities Council).
A number of other programs can be used to bring the jobs-housing balance back into equilibrium. One option is for a local or state government economic development program to link its incentives to employers who create jobs that are close to affordable housing. An example is the new Business Location Efficiency Act in Illinois, which links the granting of economic development subsidies to jobs that are accessible by public transit and/or close to affordable housing. Another example is Location-Efficient Mortgages (LEMs), a financing strategy to encourage people to buy homes in a central location or near transit lines. An LEM allows the savings from lowering the cost of commuting to be applied to a higher loan payment.
In Florida, information on EAH programs and related technical assistance is available from 1000 Friends of Florida [www.1000fof.org] and the Florida Housing Coalition [www.flhousing.org]. At the national level, information is available from the National Housing Institute [www.nhi.org]; the National Association of Realtors [www.realtor.org/housopp.nsf], which sponsors realtor EAH training; and the Smart Growth Network [www.smartgrowth.org]. 
