Some housing trust fund campaigns have focused on how affordable housing helps revitalize and stabilize neighborhoods.  These arguments typically focus on the costs to neighborhoods caused by vacant and abandoned properties and conversely, on the relationship between affordable housing and business development.  Failure to improve abandoned, vacant, and deteriorated structures depletes tax rolls and impacts property values of surrounding homes, further eroding the tax base.

At the same time, jurisdictions suffer the loss of potential revenues when businesses wishing to locate or expand choose to go elsewhere because there are inadequate affordable housing opportunities for their potential employees.  In a study by the Vermont Housing Finance Agency in 2005,  eighty-nine percent of the Vermont employers surveyed described the cost and availability of housing as an obstacle to economic development; a barrier to the recruitment of new employees; and a significant problem with their current employees because of extended commuter times and absenteeism.

In 2010, the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy published “Maintaining Diversity in America’s Transit-Rich Neighborhoods: Tools for Equitable Change” that demonstrates the how locating affordable housing on transit hubsbenefits urban transportation systems.