It’s commonly agreed upon that there is a severe housing affordability issue throughout the United States. A new report suggests ways to fight the crisis for the half of rental households in the country — 22.4 million — that are “rent-burdened.”

Households that are rent-burdened spend more than 30% of their household income on rent. This is the threshold set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to “Housing Affordability Toolkit: Housing Affordability Can Be Solved in This Generation,” written by Matthew Kwatinetz from the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate. The report was published jointly Tuesday by the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) and NYU Urban Lab.

The toolkit outlines ways to address the housing affordability crisis for the one-third of U.S. households that rent their homes. For the rent-burdened half of renter households, it says there are two affordability crises. One is a chronic undersupply of homes in certain markets, which leads to high rent burdens — even among households with moderate to high incomes.

The second “stems from the high share of extremely low-income households for which no private housing will ever be affordable without some sort of subsidy.”

The report outlines strategies to address the affordability crisis, suggesting increasing supply, preserving existing units and reducing regulatory barriers.

The first point, increasing housing supply, can be achieved through a three-step approach, the report maintains: “Unlocking dormant development, creating incentives for preservation and working to balance existing economic forces.”

The toolkit says continued development is required just to maintain the status quo.

“And even if development production can be increased back to historical heights, not all the production can be allocated to affordability solutions,” it states.

Preservation is the second area of focus, with the analysis citing an existing inventory of 14 million units, of which some could be annually preserved as affordable. The plan outlined by Kwatinetz calls for directing the existing units “toward affordability solutions” by acquiring them and applying financial and regulatory tools to preserve them as affordable.

“Preservation is substantially more cost-effective than new affordable construction,” the report states.

Regulations are a large driver of increased costs. The report cites research by the NMHC and the National Association of Home Builders that found “regulation accounts for an average of 40.6% of the cost of developing a new apartment building with five or more units.”

While “some regulations serve important public and safety purposes,” it says that “shifting the full cost of regulatory measures to the private sector ultimately raises housing costs — undermining housing affordability, itself a critical public good.”

Setting a “bold but achievable goal,” Kwatinetz says the rental housing affordability crisis could be ended within a 17-year timeline.

“If production can be restored to historic highs while simultaneously placing vacant homes back into service at affordable rents, the gap could be closed within a generation,” he writes. “The math is clear: a 13% boost in private-market production, sustained over time, returns to the output levels of the early 1970s.”

“With the right policies, this is not just possible,” Kwatinetz concludes. “It’s the moment to prove that the rental housing affordability problem can finally be solved in America.”