Low-cost housing still one of Valley’s biggest problems
Without a doubt, the biggest problem that has challenged this community for the longest time, is the lack of housing options, especially for low-income people. Here is some misery-inducing data:
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines the “fair market rent” in the region to be about $1,200 for two bedrooms. Many apartments go for much more than that but few go for much less. All of the family planners and home economics teachers (meaning our parents) insist we pay no more than 30% of our net income on housing. Most mortgage lenders would agree with that. Now, if you need a place, you can pay considerably more. Many apartments, like those JB Reilly and his City Center Investment Company have been impressively producing, rent for more than $1,600.
Not surprisingly, at the very bottom of the economic ladder are those who are so poor that they have little chance of scratching their way out of poverty: they may have had so much misfortune they are convinced they are losers and can’t function.
They may be drug- or alcohol-cursed; they may be mentally ill. Far too many are combat veterans. There are those who couch-surf, as they call it; like nomads, they wander around in the wilderness, their small children lacking any rhythm in their lives. Their surfing includes couches, floors, cars and an
occasional bed. There are those who have been thrown out of their homes by frustrated, desperate spouses or other loved ones gone mad. They have limited skills, if they have any at all, but those skills are worth diddly in the private market.
All of them and plenty more are those I keep characterizing as the ones we “leave behind.” As a society, we want to be able to judge them, look for ways to convince ourselves that their problems are the sort that are of their own making, that it is, indeed, their fault. Don’t look under those rocks, folks, you might not like
what you see. Maybe the free market doesn’t quite work. If not, we don’t want to concede that the rising tide really doesn’t lift all boats. Can’t be “the system’s” fault, right?
Keep in mind that housing markets are very, very local. Think about the 18103 ZIP code. Cumberland Gardens, a federal housing “project,” is there. So is Lehigh Parkway. Allentown’s market is very different from Bethlehem’s. The South Side is very different from north Bethlehem. Land costs are going to keep increasing because demand is rising and supply is, ultimately, diminishing.
Who expected the supply chain mess? Interest rates are rising as the Federal Reserve tries to zap inflation. The cost of building materials is rising. New York and New Jersey’s affordable housing programs are called “Pennsylvania,” the demand causing all the more cost increases.
One thing is very clear: the housing market is dysfunctional. The private sector cannot make
a profit building housing that is affordable for people whose value in the marketplace is limited. By that, I mean those with income below about 80% of the median income (roughly $50,000 in the Lehigh Valley). The
details would take more writing than most would bother reading, so just trust me on this one. Over the past 30 years or so, we tried everything: building on cheap (meaning challenged) land, having a design competition for architects, writing down the interest rate for developers and more. We nipped at the
edges of this issue, hoping that, maybe, the dragon could be slain with lots and lots of little cuts.
Since the 1980s, the primary federal tool to try to bring down the cost of developing rental housing, coupled with other pot-sweeteners, can get the cost of development down to make the rent affordable
for someone with an income below 80% of area median income. But if you earn 50% or less of area median income (total
household income less than $35,000), forget it. So, a single mom earning $17 per hour would be challenged to find a place to live. If you are one of the few hundred families receiving cash assistance the rent for the apartment we just described would have to be almost nothing, since a family of three would only collect $403 per month. Shocking, isn’t it?
I ranted, raved, reasoned, railed and more over the past 40 years trying to get this toughest of all tough issues addressed, engaging all kinds of people and industries. We got, basically, nowhere. Instead, we got more blighted housing, more scary neighborhoods, more poverty concentrated in our oldest
neighborhoods, more flight of white people and their money to the suburbs where property values rose for those folks, more fires uprooting the poorest of the poor, more homelessness.
This is an extremely complicated problem. When people tell you that there are easy solutions
to such complexity, try not to laugh.
So, we have ourselves a crisis. Candidly, I prefer to use the term “disaster,” one affecting thousands of households here in the Lehigh Valley. It’s so bad, you just feel like it can’t be solved. But every problem has a solution; it is often the will to solve the problem that we are missing; the cold shoulder becomes a cold heart. We give up.
Don’t. If we get everyone together again, maybe we can find a way. We need a steady funding stream, more helpful land use plans (I’m not blaming the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission), sympathetic employers, a review of all regulations to make sure they’re still relevant and, yes, federal and state involvement. Nothing less has any chance of making the difference.