Housing & Homelessness

Steady job growth and excellent schools are among the features that have made metropolitan Washington a desirable place to live, spurring high home values and encouraging the creation of expensive new developments. This has put enormous pressure on local governments striving to shape communities where all citizens—from service workers to police officers, firefighters, and other civil servants—can afford to live. Homelessness is also a challenge throughout the region, which affects working families as well as individuals with illnesses or substance abuse disorders.

COG shares housing data, best practices, and tools to help encourage the production and preservation of more affordable housing. Through strategic partnerships, COG and its members build greater awareness of the region's affordable housing needs. 

COG also supports the housing needs of the region's most-vulnerable population, homeless individuals and families. COG, area governments, and homeless services providers conduct an enumeration of the region's homeless and formerly homeless population every year to assess the scale of the issue and progress on local efforts to end homelessness.