Report: S.F. rentals elusive for low-income earners
What units are available often cost more than half of minimum-wage worker’s pay
Santa Fe residents earning the minimum wage will spend more than half their pay renting a one bedroom apartment, if they can find one, based on the annual report released this week by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Those renters, the report says, are “cost burdened” — meaning they spend more than a third of their annual income on housing costs, including utilities. In Santa Fe, however, the vacancy rate is so low, 3 percent or less, that just finding a place to rent is difficult.
“The market is even stronger than it was nine months ago,” said Todd Clarke of New Mexico Apartment Advisors Inc., a housing research firm in Albuquerque. “Occupancy is as high as it can get.”
The annual coalition report, “Out of Reach 2018,” found no full-time worker anywhere in the U.S. earning the federal or state minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom rental at market rates. Affordable is defined as costing no more than one-third of a person’s income. In only 22 U.S. counties — all in states with a minimum wage higher than $7.25 — can a full-time minimumwage worker afford a one-bedroom rental at market rates, according to the report.
In Santa Fe, where minimum wage is $11.40 an hour, a worker still needs to earn $16.42 an hour to afford a onebedroom apartment — $19.35 for two bedrooms — without spending more than a third on housing, according to the report.
A fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Fe is $1,006 a month, according to the coalition. According to Apartment List Inc., the two-bedroom median rent is $1,115. Median means half the units rent for more that that and half rent for less.
About a third of Santa Fe households, more than 18,000, are renters.
Estimates of the shortfall in rental units in Santa Fe reach the thousands. Clarke estimated in October that Santa Fe needs about 6,500 new apartments to meet demand. In a talk last week, Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber told Santa Fe homebuilders the city needs about 5,000 units of all types.
At Railyard Flats, a new apartment building at the Santa Fe Railyard that opened in March, all 58 units are leased. The rents advertised there range from $890 to $2,200. Tenant Barry Shulock, who moved into the building in May, said his rent is a bargain compared to what he paid in Washington, D.C. But finding an apartment in Santa Fe was difficult, he said.
“There aren’t a lot of options,” Shulock said. “If I hadn’t found this, I don’t know where I could have gone.”
Last summer, the vacancy rate in Santa Fe and Los Alamos was about 3 percent of the 3,142 units whose managers responded to the most recent survey by the New Mexico Apartment Owners Association. In Los Alamos, the rate was below 1 percent, according to an April 2017 survey by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of New Mexico.
With rental housing at a premium, the lowest wage earners are having the hardest time finding a place to rent, said Hank Hughes, executive director of the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, based in Santa Fe.
“The problem is that housing is expensive, and without a subsidy for people who make minimum wage or even a little above that, who are on disability or a fixed income, it’s really hard to afford,” he said. “People double up so they can share the rent. People often, as we know, live in Rio Rancho or Española, where it’s cheaper.”
The national report arrives just as Webber, elected in March, expects reports from eight working groups looking for short-term plans for pressing city issues, including housing availability.
“It’s timely though,” said Matt Ross, city spokesman. “We’re going to hear on Friday from all these transition working groups.”
The National Low Income Housing Coalition, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., advocates for federal housing programs and affordable housing in general.