Last Thursday local home builders and other professionals in the industry made their first pitch to Congress to look at what can be done to inject life into the housing market. One of our builders expressed the today's problem eloquently -- a few years ago the pendulum swung too far the other way that opened the doors to easy credit that overheated the housing market. Now, the pendulum has swing too far the other direction, essentially choking off the new-home market with no relief in sight.

As one of the people responsible for telling Kansas City the state of the local housing market, I think we have missed the mark on understanding what has happened, what is happening and what will happen. No one expected us to be there. In 2006 we knew the market was going to cool off but we were hoping for that "soft landing" the Federal Reserve projected. Even as the market continued to tumble, experts nationwide kept seeing light at the end of the tunnel in six months.

That all changed last October, although it took us a while to realize it. That was the month the world change for housing. With the meltdown of the credit and financial markets, an unspoken message reverberated through the lending community -- stay away from housing.

Since then, we have seen virtually zero speculative building in any form. Even apartment construction and permitting has grinded to a complete halt. Builders who used to start 40 units of townhomes at a time have been forced to start one building at a time fueled only by presales, which is a difficult proposition to sell. Local new-home inventory is at its lowest level since 2001, and that number will continue to shrink. We will be lucky to start 2,000 new home in metro Kansas City this year, a place where we peaked at nearly 13,000 in 2004. That decline in production represent a major hit to the local economy. That means a loss of more than 21,000 jobs. Local services, especially schools, depended upon the soaring property values driven by the housing market to bring in revenue.

Listening to home builders, salespeople and others tell their stories of who this impacts them makes it evident what we are in danger of losing. The home-bulding community is on the brink of extinction. I no longer look at reports that nearly half of all mortgage holders will be underwater on their loans by next summer or estimates that two-thirds of home-building business will be gone with doubt and skepticism. It's all too real. We're in danger of wiping out an entire workforce. If all the home builders and tradespeople are forced out of the industry, who will build our homes?

The industry isn't asking for a handout or a bailout. The "cash for clunkers" cars program was all about shedding overbuilt inventories. The housing market in many places has shed its excess inventory. There is an $8,000 first-time buyer tax credit and it has generally done what most of us expected -- it boosted the resale market but not the new-home market.