Arizona Has the Will to Solve Its Housing Crisis. Here Is How We Get There.

By Joan Serviss, Director, Affordable Housing and Homelessness, Arizona Community Foundation

I was born and raised in Arizona. My family chose this state for a reason. It was once affordable, and people came here for the quality of life, for the sunshine, for the opportunity, and for the sense of community. That is still true. But for many Arizonans today, and for far too many of the next generation, the idea of owning a home or finding an affordable place to rent is increasingly out of reach.  

I have thought a lot about that lately. I had the privilege of my parents helping with the down payment on my first condo. When I sold it, I paid them back, and I used that equity to move-up to a home for my growing family. That is how generational wealth is supposed to work. But because Arizona’s cost of living has increased so sharply and so quickly, more and more Arizonans are being priced out of that cycle entirely. The average age of a first-time homebuyer in Arizona is now 40 (National Association of Realtors, 2025). My college-age kids will likely come home after college graduation because the economics of launching into an independent household are simply that difficult. This is not a personal failure. It is a structural one. 

Think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You need shelter before you can do anything else. Before you can pursue education, hold down a job, access medical care, or build a life. Housing is not one issue among many. It is the foundation on which everything else rests. I saw that truth come into sharp focus during COVID, when our homes became our offices, our schools, our playgrounds, and our places of rest and recovery. Everyone has a housing story, just the way everyone has an education story. It is that personal and that universal. 

The numbers behind Arizona's housing challenge are clear and compelling. Our state currently faces a growing shortage of more than 105,000 housing units, a gap that grows every year as population growth continues to outpace production (League of Arizona Cities and Towns, 2025). Only 26 affordable rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income households, placing Arizona among the five worst states in the nation for housing availability (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2025). In 2024, eviction filings in Arizona hit an all-time record of 106,587. Homelessness exceeded 14,000 individuals statewide for the second consecutive year (Arizona Town Hall Background Report, Morrison Institute, 2026; Arizona Department of Economic Security, 2025). Homelessness in Arizona is a housing problem. When we do not build enough housing, that is what happens. 

"Homelessness is a housing problem. When we do not build enough affordable housing, vulnerable people lose out in the competition for cheap rents and access to shelters."

Seven Financing Sources to Build One Affordable Home Community 

I have spent more than 15 years in this sector, first leading the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness, then the Arizona Housing Coalition, then serving as Director and Deputy Director of the Arizona Department of Housing. In every role, I have watched dedicated housing developers work their hardest to build affordable housing Arizona needs, and I have watched the financing system make that far harder than it should be. 

Here is the reality that most people do not see. To build a single affordable housing development in Arizona, a nonprofit developer must typically assemble five to seven separate financing sources, each with its own application requirements, underwriting timelines, compliance obligations, and reporting structures (Arizona Town Hall Background Report, Morrison Institute, 2026; Arizona Community Foundation, 2025). That might mean combining Low Income Housing Tax Credits, federal HOME funds, a local affordable housing trust fund, a conventional construction loan, a bridge loan, and philanthropic gap financing, all coordinated simultaneously, often over two to three years before a single unit is built. 

In 2022, Arizona received 33 LIHTC applications and could only fund 16 projects (Arizona Town Hall Background Report, Morrison Institute, 2026). The projects that did not get funded were not all weak proposals. There simply was not enough flexible capital to move them forward. The complexity of the financing system is itself a barrier to production, and it is a barrier that falls heaviest on smaller nonprofit developers in Arizona who are most rooted in the communities that need housing most. 

"The complexity of the financing system is itself a barrier to production, and it falls heaviest on the developers most rooted in the communities that need housing most."

The First Dollar In

This is precisely where the Arizona Community Foundation comes in. ACF is not the largest capital source in any project's financing stack. That is not the role philanthropy is meant to play. But ACF can be the first dollar in, the early, flexible, catalytic capital that allows a nonprofit housing developer to get the work started before they have certainty about what other funding will follow. 

In the predevelopment stage, a developer needs to show architecture renderings, complete environmental reviews, demonstrate site control, and begin the community engagement process. These are real costs, and they have to be paid before a developer knows whether they will receive a tax credit award, before local permits are secured, before the conventional lenders show up. Most funders will not commit until those boxes are checked. ACF will. That is the gap we are designed to fill. 

ACF recently expanded its predevelopment loan fund into a unified Affordable Housing Loan Fund, a more flexible platform that walks alongside nonprofit developers not just through early-stage capital but through gap financing, bridge financing, and the full journey to construction completion. The goal is to be responsive, nimble, and catalytic, pulling other capital to the table and keeping rents affordable for the people who will actually live in these homes. Because building more units is only part of the answer. If the financing structure drives rents beyond what working Arizonans can afford, we miss the mark entirely. 

What makes this model work is that the capital is recyclable. A developer like La Frontera builds one project with ACF support, repays the loan, and comes back for the next development. They have now completed five projects supported by ACF's affordable housing loan program. Copa Community Development built La Victoria Commons, a beautiful development connecting housing and health care in central Phoenix, through the same model. AllThrive 365, formerly the Foundation for Senior Living, has used ACF's early-stage capital to bring affordable senior housing to life across the state. Over the past 15-plus years, ACF has supported affordable housing development across Arizona, creating more than 4,000 affordable housing units across Arizona (Arizona Community Foundation, 2025). We are just at the beginning stage of what is possible at greater scale. 

"ACF can be the first dollar in: the early, flexible, catalytic capital that allows a nonprofit developer to get started before they have certainty about what other funding will follow."

Collaboration Makes Affordable Housing Development Possible

No single organization can solve Arizona's housing shortage. That is a fact, not a limitation. The capital stack that makes one affordable housing development possible requires banks, state agencies, federal programs, local governments, philanthropic investors, and community partners all coordinating their resources. What ACF brings to that table is not just capital. It is a convening function. We sit at the intersection of all these stakeholders. We can see where gaps exist and where capital is stacking up. We can facilitate relationships between funders and nonprofit developers who might otherwise never connect. 

We are also exploring some of the more creative solutions Arizona needs. By bringing together philanthropic capital and mission-driven lenders, we can reduce barriers that keep too many hardworking families from affordable homeownership. A loan loss guarantee can help expand access to affordable mortgage options for first-time homebuyers in underserved communities, allowing charitable dollars to unlock far more private lending than philanthropy could provide on its own. We are also working to connect donors who hold surplus land with nonprofit developers who can put it to work building affordable homes. These are exactly the kinds of conversations that a community foundation is positioned to broker. 

We are building something broader than a loan program. We are building the kind of cross-sector— and across the housing continuum— collaboration that Arizona's housing challenge demands. Because community is our middle name, and that means showing up at every table, with every partner, for every family that deserves a stable place to call home. 

Everyone Is Coming to the Table on Arizona's Housing Crisis

I want to be honest with you. I have worked in housing and homelessness long enough to know how hard this housing crisis is. The data can feel heavy. The pace of change can feel frustratingly slow. But I have real optimism about where things are headed, and here is why. 

This used to be an us-versus-them conversation. Housing was a problem for service providers and government agencies to manage quietly. That is no longer true. Today, everyone is coming to the table with real solutions. Business leaders. Municipal governments. Philanthropy. Banks. Developers. Residents. The 2026 Arizona Town Hall chose housing as its statewide topic because Arizonans from every background and every corner of this state recognize that this is a shared challenge that demands a shared response. Arizona voters have shared real housing affordability concerns. 84% of Arizona voters say rental prices are too high. 78% say their communities need more affordable housing (Center for the Future of Arizona, 2024). The public will is there. The work now is to match it with the right capital and the right structures to act on it. 

Affordable housing is not a charity. It is an economic necessity. It is what allows teachers to live in the communities where they teach. It is what allows seniors to age in place with dignity. It is what allows young families to plant roots rather than leave. And it is what allows Arizona to grow in a way that works for everyone, not just those who got here early enough to benefit from lower costs. 

"Affordable housing is not a charity. It is an economic necessity."

What You Can Do Today

If you believe, as I do, that Arizona is worth fighting for, there is a concrete way to help. ACF's Affordable Housing Loan Fund puts your investment to work immediately, as early-stage capital for nonprofit housing developers who are ready to build but need that first flexible dollar to get moving. Those dollars do not sit still. They cycle back into new projects, new communities, new families pursuing affordable homeownership. 

Housing is a challenge we all face together. If we invest together, we can make the impact together. 

Support Arizona's Most Pressing Housing Needs 

Give to ACF's Affordable Housing Loan Fund

Joan Serviss serves as Director of Affordable Housing and Homelessness at the Arizona Community Foundation. She previously served as Director and Deputy Director of the Arizona Department of Housing and as Executive Director of the Arizona Housing Coalition. She holds a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Arizona State University and serves on the advisory board of the Arizona Research Center for Housing Equity and Sustainability (ARCHES) and on LISC Phoenix's Local Advisory Committee. 

References 

1. Arizona Community Foundation. (2025). ACF Housing Strategy Framework.  org
2. Arizona Department of Economic Security. (2025). State of Homelessness Services: Annual Report 2024.  az.gov
3. Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity. (2025). Arizona Population Projections 2025-2060.  az.gov
4. Arizona Research Center for Housing and Economic Solutions (ARCHES). (2025). 2025 State of Housing in Arizona. ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy / UA Drachman Institute.  asu.edu/arches
5. Arizona Town Hall. (2026). #118 Housing Arizona Background Report. Prepared by Morrison Institute for Public Policy.  org
6. Center for the Future of Arizona. (2024). The Arizona We Want: Data and Insights on Education, Environment and Housing.  org/the-arizona-we-want/
7. League of Arizona Cities and Towns. (2025). Arizona Housing Shortage Data.  org
8. National Low Income Housing Coalition. (2025). The Gap 2025: A Shortage of Affordable Homes.  org/gap
9. National Low Income Housing Coalition. (2026). 2026 Arizona Housing Profile.  org/sites/default/files/SHP_AZ.pdf