The implicit and an explicit social contract to provide adequate housing for its entire population. To date, this is a contract whose obligations remain unfulfilled. Evidence of this failure abounds in the vast numbers of homeless families on city streets, in the large numbers of families that have to live doubled and even tripled up with other families, and in the crushingly high rent burdens that many low-income families have to endure. the housing needs of our most disadvantaged citizens. Through the enactment of building codes and other regulations, we have deemed that housing below minimal standards is unacceptable and unfit for human occupation. The cost of producing housing that meets even minimal standards, however, is above what many low-income households can afford.