Key Worker Housing Policies

The difficulties that lower-paid public sector employees are experiencing in accessing affordable housing in high-cost locations have provoked a policy debate in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States. The UK Government has responded by providing different forms of financial assistance to eligible workers through its Key Worker Living programme and national planning policies. The provision of equity loans and new rental developments targeted at key workers also exist in the United States. However, there remain some fundamental problems in pursuing key worker housing policies, not least in defining and drawing boundaries of key worker entitlement, measuring the causes and extent of the problem as well as evaluating policy effectiveness.