Cycling Coast to Coast

What’s the big fuss about affordable housing?

The lack of affordable housing is a huge issue in our country today, and much more prevalent than most people believe. According to the federal government, housing is considered affordable if it doesn’t cost more that 30% of your income. In 2001, 95 million Americans, or one third of the nation, had housing problems. That’s over twice the number of people who do not have health insurance. Furthermore, lack of affordable housing is a problem that’s steadily getting worse. From 2001 to 2005, the number of households with critical housing needs (over 50% of household income spent on housing costs) increased 22.4% from 14.3 to 17.5 million.

Housing problems can be broken down into the following areas:

• Cost burdens: residents pay an excessively large percentage of income on housing costs.
• Physical inadequacy: severe physical deficiencies, such as lack of hot water, electricity, toilets, bathtubs, and showers. One in seven poor families lives in housing which is physically inadequate.
• Overcrowding: the number of people living in the house is greater than the total number of rooms in the house. About 6.1 million households live in overcrowded conditions.

Why is affordable housing a problem for so many people?

There are many reasons for the lack of quality and affordable housing. One major cause is that, in the United States, the wages of low-income workers have not kept up with the rising costs of rents and mortgage requirements. This means that millions of hardworking laborers in low-wage jobs do not earn enough income to enable workers to afford even the most modest housing. According to a report published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition in 2006,

Today there is not a county in the country where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford even a one bedroom apartment at the fair market rent. On average, nationwide, even a household of three workers earning the federal minimum wage and working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, could not afford a two bedroom unit at the national fair market rent.

To afford the median fair market price of a two-bedroom rental unit in the United States, a laborer would have to earn at least two and a half times the current federal minimum wage of $5.85 per hour. Despite the difficulty of making ends meet on such meager wages, a significant fraction of Americans rely on the income of a sole low-paid earner. In 2000, about 9.1 million households depended on the earnings of one worker being paid one to two times the minimum wage ($9,012 to $18,024). As you can infer, the lack of adequate housing also affects millions of children, elderly, and disabled citizen who do not have the capacity to better their housing situation.

Another important contributing factor is the loss of millions of affordable housing units. These units have either been abandoned or demolished, or have been converted into higher-cost units. The loss of units stems from social and population trends. One such cause was the “white flight” following World War II, when many white, economically stable families abandoned the inner city neighborhoods, ultimately leaving behind poor populations whose neighborhoods rapidly deteriorated. Federally subsidized home mortgages encouraged suburbanization for these well-to-do families, but did not provide equal advantages to renters in city apartments. The construction of highways that enabled this mass exodus from the nation’s cities destroyed areas previously occupied by low-income communities, furthering the disparities in housing quality.

More recently, we have witnessed the process of gentrification, in which low-cost, physically deteriorated areas experience physical renovation and an increase in property values, along with an influx of wealthier residents who typically replace the prior residents. This often forces low-income residents to move further from the city center due to the increase in rental payments and property values that usually accompany gentrification.

Why is affordable housing good?

Housing is one of life’s necessities. A house is a place to have protection from weather, to raise a family, to store belongings, to provide security, to create a disease-free environment, to be contacted, and, simply, to live. Most people will extend themselves to extremes in order to avoid homelessness, which often results in prioritizing housing over other necessities such as food and healthcare.

Inadequate housing puts strains on families in ways aside from financially as well. For example, studies have shown that children in overcrowded home situations are much less likely to complete their homework than are students who have adequate homes. Having enough space promotes healthy relationships among family members.

Some organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity, place a large emphasis on policies that promote homeownership, rather than policies that provide affordable rent for apartments. Most of these advantages are identified through the sense of permanence which ownership provides. Homeowners have a financial incentive to see their neighborhood thrive through community involvement, and to maintain their homes. Children also benefit from homeownership as a house provides stability for friendships, community, and schooling. Additionally, ownership can improve health, as well as provide financial benefits, as the tax code in the United States is structured to benefit (and thereby encourage) homeownership.

These are only some of the reasons why a lack of affordable housing is unacceptable. If large masses of people in this country were starving, there would be a swift public reaction to feed them. Similarly, large masses of people without housing should be immediately helped. Escape from the threat of homelessness should be a societal priority.

Further Reading

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Barbara Ehrenreich
Great book on what it’s like to live as a low-paid unskilled worker. Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich leaves her middle-class life behind and attempts to survive on the salary of an unskilled worker — $6 to $7 dollars an hour. She works as a waitress, a housecleaner, a nursing home aide, and in a Wal-Mart.

America’s Neighbors: The Affordable Housing Crisis and the People it Affects
National Low Income Housing Coalition

The Housing Landscape for America’s Working Families
Center for Housing Policy

San Francisco Affordable Housing Factsheet
San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing

Out of Reach
National Low Income Housing Coalition
Since 1998, the NLIHC has published this report comparing wages and rents in every county, metropolitan area, and combined nonmetropolitan area and state in the US. For each area, the report calculates the amount of money a household must earn to afford a rental apartment at Fair Market Rent.

Paycheck to Paycheck
Center for Housing Policy
An interactive database that presents wage information and home prices and rents for major metropolitan area. See for youself how workers in your hometown fare in the housing market.