Affordable housing crisis is problem for all communities

It has been a year since the remnants of Hurricane Ida ripped through the region, causing a deadly tornado to cut a swath of destruction through Montgomery County and dumping torrential rain that brought record flooding of the Schuylkill River to towns along its banks.

The tornado destroyed homes and offices in Upper Dublin Township and damaged the Temple Ambler college campus as well as the Upper Dublin Township municipal complex and schools. On the other side of the county, the rising river destroyed hundreds of homes and apartments, forcing water rescues of many people and leaving them with nothing after the flood.

Upper Dublin has dealt with the hardships — cleaning up, rebuilding, neighbors helping neighbors in a movement they call “Upper Dublin Strong.” Houses needed to be repaired and rebuilt, with intense negotiations and persistence with insurance companies, and the possessions lost cannot be replaced in many cases.

But on the other side of Montgomery County in Norristown, Bridgeport and Mont Clare, picking up those pieces has been a monumental task. A year later, families remain homeless. These apartment dwellers may have had insurance for their possessions, but they have no way to replace their homes. Of the hundreds of apartments ruined by flooding, more than 100 won’t be rebuilt.

And, as this housing is lost, there is nothing to take its place. Units in the nearby apartment complexes in King of Prussia are priced as much as four or five times what working families were paying in Norristown and Bridgeport. Affordable housing which might be found in towns farther to the west are not practical for those whose jobs are near Norristown. The expense of a car and inflation-driven gas prices make it unaffordable, and the loss of time in a commute makes child care costly or impossible.

The cost of housing in Montgomery County, the second wealthiest county in Pennsylvania, puts a home out of reach for many. That realization — that working families cannot afford this most basic need — is finally stirring some debate among officials and residents.

“No one should ever have to live without a roof over their head. This is unacceptable. We readily acknowledge that Montgomery County is facing a housing affordability crisis. This has been the case for many years, but it has been made worse recently due to the economic impact of COVID, the destruction of homes by Hurricane Ida and rising rents across our region,” said county Commissioners Val Arkoosh and Ken Lawrence in a recent op-ed published here.

That opinion has stirred reaction in some townships where residents make it clear they don’t want “affordable housing” in their backyards. The conversation in Upper Gwynedd Township started over a proposal, since withdrawn, for a 45-unit complex.

Arkoosh has said that the affordable housing crisis and the homelessness which results are a problem for every community, not just the lower income urban neighborhoods. “This is a countywide problem that will take a countywide response. … We have 62 municipalities, and we need each one of them to do their fair share to help their residents in need,” commissioners wrote in the op-ed.

Kayleigh Silver, director of housing and community development, put it this way: “Housing affordability is a community that has enough housing, and services, for a senior to be able to age in place. Housing affordability is enough housing for a recent college graduate to be able to come back home to their neighborhood to live and work,” said Silver, adding that “realizing this mission lately has been more difficult.”

Hurricane Ida was not picky about which homes to destroy or whose lives to upend. Just as so many lost so much in that storm, those who were spared must work together to provide shelter in times of crisis and stable housing opportunities for recovery. In this region of wealth and opportunity, the need to build solutions to the housing crisis is imperative.