The Michigan's State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) offers another website that joins a small but growing patchwork quilt of online portals to affordable housing listings.

While major rental listing websites include affordable housing units in their database, Michigan's Michigan Housing Locator, like those available on other government-sponsored sites, exclusively pinpoints government subsidized housing, income-based housing, homes for older renters, homes accessible to people with disabilities and other forms of specialized, affordable housing.

Like other such sites, the Michigan Housing Locator is free for both renters and landlords and offers, along with descriptions, locations and rents, a view of floor plans, photos and an application and leasing process.

Also a tool for property owners and managers, the site allows renters to send emailed inquiries directly to owners and managers who can track statistics on visitors viewing habits.

Not unlike trade group and commercially operated national home buying and renting Web sites, it also offers Google mapping and location information as well as a symbol key to reveal to potential renters if the property is furnished, if pets are allowed, accessibility, if housing vouchers are accepted and which utilities are included in the rent.

MSHDA partnered with the Michigan Housing Council, the Property Managers Association of Michigan and Michigan Disability Rights Coalition to build the website, a cost-effective approach not unlike that of one of the first in the growing line of such websites.

Just four years ago, when the Community Technology Alliance, Housing for Independent People, Inc., the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Sobrato Family Foundation, and the California cities of San Jose, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale launched HousingSCC.org., the National Multihousing Council knew of no other such site.

Affordable housing online

Since then, the council's website lists as a resource, the non-profit SocialServe.com which has rounded up a host of similar sites for communities in at least 14 states which offer portals to affordable and accessible housing to buy and to rent.

The road to online affordable housing has been a slow one due largely to governments burdened with budgetary restraints facing the cost of technology necessary to construct listing sites.

SocialServe, much like the Community Technology Alliance that helped get HousingSCC.org off the ground, is dedicated to developing and sharing Web applications for affordable housing portals.

SocialServe recently created LAHousingSearch.org to give Hurricane Katrina-battered Louisiana a no-cost place where renters and landlords connect for much needed housing.

Funded by the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency and the Department of Health and Hospitals, the site allows easy searches for housing using a wide variety of search criteria with special mapping features. The apartment listings come with in-depth details about the amenities in each unit.

The website also connects people to other housing resources through links and provides helpful tools for renters such as an affordability calculator, rental checklist, and renter rights and responsibilities information.

Accessible housing online

Another Web-based service for specialized housing is National Accessible Apartment Clearing House, a public service program of The National Apartment Association, The National Multi Housing Council, American Computer Software, and Virginia Housing Development Authority.

The site is a community of renters and landlords looking for and offering housing for people with disabilities in more than 155 major metros. The database includes 80,000 units and covers all 50 states.

In addition to helping previously underserved people locate existing, retrofitted and newly constructed accessible rental units, the site also helps property owners fill these special units, some of which often remain vacant because there has been no viable marketing niche.

Bookmark these sites.

You never know when you or someone you know will need fast access to affordable or accessible housing.

"Site To See" is a series of reviews or critiques of content-heavy real estate websites deemed unique, consumer-friendly, informative and easy to use.

Published: February 6, 2007

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.