Millions of Americans struggle to find affordable housing. And conversation about solutions often gets overtaken by one idea: build more units!

To be sure, reforming zoning laws to enable new housing construction en masse – the main argument of the YIMBY contingent – is part of addressing our housing crisis. But to address the enormity and depth of the crisis in a meaningful way, to actually make housing more affordable for everyone in the longterm, we need to expand our tool set.

“When we talk about supply, we're often talking about the way that limited supply offers more market power to landowners by limiting the amount of choices that consumers have,” Next City's housing correspondent Roshan Abraham explains. “But we don't talk enough about the fact that there are many other points of leverage that tenants, have … We don't talk enough about all the leverage that communities or the state and the government has [through] the power of the purse.”

In this episode, we're joined by Abraham and the following speakers:

• Miriam Axel-Lute, CEO/editor-in-chief of Shelterforce (our frequent journalism collaborator!)
• Julia Duranti-Martínez, Senior Program Officer at LISC
• Candice Turner, MSW, Director of Homeownership at the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust
• Liz Ryan Murray, Director of Strategic Campaigns at Metropolitan Equity

Listen to the episode below or subscribe to the Next City podcast on Apple, Spotify or Goodpods. Or check out our webinar, part of Next City's annual Solutions of the Year festival, to watch the full conversation.

This post was originally published on Next City.