As housing prices have gone up in recent years in much of the United States, some assistance programs now offer monetary help to people with higher incomes:

Down Payment Resource, a company that compiles information on more than 2,700 home-buying programs, shared data with The Washington Post that showed more than 115 programs have raised their income threshold requirements since 2023. In most of those cases, the programs now offer aid to would-be home buyers whose income is above their local median, sometimes well above.

Memphis, for instance, now offers down-payment assistance to households with twice the local median income that purchase in designated areas of the city. San Francisco offers loans of up to half a million dollars for first-time home buyers; a single person with income up to $218,200 can apply…

Adam Grubbs, who runs a municipal down-payment-assistance program in Aurora, Illinois, said local leaders there decided to use municipal funds (about $300,000) to give middle-income households support similar to a federally subsidized program for low-income buyers.

“It’s those police officers, your fire department staff, nurses, teachers: those people that, they do have good jobs, but with this housing market it’s still unaffordable for them. Even they need help trying to buy their first house,” Grubbs said.

These changes get at some key questions underlying how Americans view housing and housing policy:

1. Who needs help regarding housing?
2. Who deserves help regarding housing?

More broadly, is housing a human right, a privilege, available to those with the right resources, for those who work hard as individuals, or something else?

These changes in programs also remind me of a quote from a former Bank of England official: “Most countries have socialized health care and a free market for mortgages. You in the United States do exactly the opposite.” Providing homebuying assistance helps people achieve homeownership, a goal viewed as desirable in the United States.

Conversations in local communities can often help answer these questions. Local residents and leaders often have a sense of who they would like to see live in their community. Take the quote above involving Aurora as an example; municipal housing funds are designated for civil servants, potential residents that serve and who are seen as contributing to the community.