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Phoenix, AZ
Change City

Fighting for Affordable Housing in Arizona

Posted on 11/30/24 by Stacey Shepard

As executive director of the nonprofit Arizona Housing Coalition, Nicole Newhouse spends her days advocating for solutions to make housing more affordable. It’s a growing problem—and one that hits close to home.

Her stepdaughter, a recent college graduate, can’t afford her own place yet. Meanwhile, Newhouse helps her 78-year-old mother with housing costs.

“My mom is luckier than most,” Newhouse says. “She has kids that have the ability to do this. But if we didn’t have the ability to do it, what would happen?”

Addressing the state’s housing affordability crisis will be among AARP Arizona’s top advocacy priorities when the 2025 legislative session begins Jan. 13. Monitoring conditions at long-term care facilities and combating cryptocurrency scams are also on the agenda.

With the state’s growing population and high housing costs, Arizonans—especially older adults and those on fixed incomes—increasingly find themselves priced out of the housing market.

Adjusted for inflation, the median home sales price in the state rose by 32 percent from April 2019 to April 2023, according to a study from the Arizona Research Center for Housing Equity and Sustainability. The report also found that rents in the state jumped 72 percent from 2010 to 2022.

The number of older adults who are experiencing homelessness for the first time is on the rise, says AARP Arizona State Director Dana Kennedy. Of the 15,312 Arizonans who received homelessness services in fiscal 2022, about 30 percent were 55 or over, according to a report by the Arizona Department of Economic Security.

To help ease the housing crunch, AARP and the Arizona Housing Coalition are urging lawmakers to renew and expand the state’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program. Adopted in 2021, the program allocates up to $4 million annually for the construction of affordable rental units, but funding is set to expire at the end of 2025.

A bill to extend the program through 2031 and double its funding to $8 million per year was introduced earlier this year but died in committee. AARP will continue to push for similar legislation.

Protecting residents

AARP Arizona will also focus on boosting accountability at long-term care facilities.

Earlier this year, lawmakers passed—and the governor signed into law—a measure imposing stricter standards and oversight for such institutions. The changes include increased penalties for negligence and minimum training standards for staff at memory care facilities. However, another bill that would have allowed families to install cameras in the rooms of their loved ones to monitor their care at residential facilities failed to pass.

Brendon Blake, AARP Arizona’s advocacy director, says he hopes to see the measure reintroduced in the upcoming session. He pointed to a recent case where a worker at a Phoenix-area care facility was arrested for sexually assaulting a resident. The incident was discovered because the victim’s family had installed a camera in her room.

“We see this as the exact reason why we think cameras should be allowed—to prevent and at least deter these types of things from happening,” Blake says.

At least 10 states have passed laws permitting cameras in residents’ rooms, according to the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care. The organization’s executive director, Lori Smetanka, says legislation often faces pushback over privacy concerns, but the group supports cameras if the resident and any roommates consent.

Targeting crypto scams

AARP Arizona also hopes to back efforts to curb a growing threat: cryptocurrency scams.

In August, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) issued a warning about criminals preying on older Arizonans.

“Scammers are taking advantage of the lack of familiarity on how cryptocurrency works to scam Arizonans out of their hard-earned money,” Mayes said in a statement.

Blake says AARP may focus on regulating crypto ATMs, which have been linked to increased fraud. Since 2020, reported consumer losses have jumped nearly tenfold, surpassing $110 million in 2023, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The agency also reported that in the first six months of 2024, consumers over 60 were more than three times as likely as younger adults to report losing money to these ATM scams.

Go to aarp.org/az for legislative updates or contact Blake at bblake@aarp.org.

Stacey Shepard, a California-based journalist, writes about health care, the environment and other issues.

More on Housing

This story is provided by AARP Arizona. Visit the AARP Arizona page for more news, events, and programs affecting retirement, health care, and more.

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