Social Issues Regarding Affordable Housing: Risks by Lack and Influence of Coronavirus

There are many social issues that have become more apparent with the ongoing pandemic. One issue is affordable housing. As with most social issues, addressing the root cause presents hard choices that involve other social issues. Making one issue better will lead to the other issues becoming worse for certain people. The paper will look at the issue of affordable housing and what the root causes are. How some entities are addressing affordable housing will be presented. Ultimately, the local and national populations have to determine what sacrifices they make for others.

The Affordable Housing Problem

Affordable housing can be defined as any type of housing where a person or family spends less than 30% of their income on rent or house payments. From the 2019 State of the Nation’s Housing report, close to 40 million American families do not have affordable housing. There are slightly more renters than homeowners in the situation. An example locally of the affordability gap from Pinellas county is that the average rent from 2017 was $1,014. To afford an apartment, a single person would have to have an hourly wage of $19.50. With the minimum wage below $9.00, low-income residents have to work several jobs to afford a place. One cause of supply being limited is government regulation. Vogel gives an example of how parking regulations reduce the number of units on a piece of land. In Miami, a developer wanted to build eight apartments between two buildings. The parking requirements were larger than the lot itself. The developer had to work with other interested parties to reduce the requirement to finally build. Miami did this in conjunction with properties near public transit. Another factor developing in the recent past is how Airbnb is affecting affordability. Los Angeles residents had listed over 11,000 units in 2014. There were about nine times as many regular hotel rooms. With the Airbnb use, these units were not available for regular residential use. The reduced demand adds to higher prices charged for rent and homeowner’s purchase prices. With a limited supply of residences and lower-income, the housing affordability problem is a big issue.

Risks Caused by Lack of Affordable Housing

The lack of affordable housing presents society with many risks. The largest risk is that with so much money going to rent, other needs may be met. Hickey points out how families may cut spending on health care severely. This obviously leads to problems later and impacts on societal health services for everyone. Other risk factors for people affected by housing affordability are lack of food and a lack of retirement savings. As with health care, these issues may bring the need for the rest of society to pay for what others cannot pay for. Other risks include homelessness due to evictions, increased crime in low-income areas, and substandard housing stock. An example from Weathers shows where tenants given affordable housing had to live in bad circumstances. The management company did not keep up with maintenance. Various problems like broken windows, roach infestations, mold, and other negative factors were occurring. With substandard housing, money has to be spent fixing the problems or in the worse case demolished. As stated earlier, health concerns are a factor along with possible mental health issues. Whether children can learn properly when stressed with bad housing is a big issue. Thus, the previous risks enumerated are a start and provide a basis for society to try to address. Exhibit 1 presents the some of larger opposing forces to affordable housing. In reality, many more forces affect the situation, and societal trade-offs must be made. From the restraining forces list, overall resistance to increased density is an example of a trade-off. Many people want more space between them and their neighbors. They may want more space for pets to move with leases, have pools, and have entertainment space. From a personal perspective, more space is needed from neighbors creating noise. However, more space means less housing and higher housing costs in a given area. The restraining force of low-income residents is the major reason for the problem. Affordable housing is to help low-income residents but other solutions like better employment situations and educational outcomes are required to solve low income. The local society has to determine which is better. The Airbnb restraining force creates less supply and is related to governmental regulation. Governments are struggling to address how to regulate the private use of a home for commercial purposes. Lee looks at how Los Angeles has tried to address the problem.

Affordable housing has received increased recognition that everyone needs a place to live within their means. At the worst, many residents have become homeless or living with others in crowded conditions. One driving force is increased public funding. This funding can be from local and national sources. National sources include vouchers in the form of “Section 8” funds. About 5 million people received these funds in 2015 to rent from private property owners. As stated earlier, there are eight times that number needing assistance. Much of the problem comes from the limited funds creating large waiting lists. Additional assistance can come from publicly owned housing. Metcalfe gives a list of several large cities here between one or three percent of all housing is public housing. Thus, the need for funding sources is extremely important. As with tolerating increased density, residents need to realize that helping less fortunate people with housing situations is necessary.

Smart regulation of housing by the government is a necessity. As stated earlier, Miami had requirements for parking that made it difficult to build multi-unit buildings. By taking into consideration public transit, relaxing the requirement was made available by the city government. Orange County in Florida relax some rules allowing as many affordable units (130) to be built in six months of 2020 than all of the previous year. By taking more consideration of supporting factors in an area, a governmental entity can increase density. Another driving force that can be provided by federal and local governments is to retarget tax subsidies. The mortgage interest deduction provided by the federal government is an example. Whether a person buying a $500,000 really needs the savings can be questioned. Limiting the deduction for higher income and increasing the deduction for low-income people can provide better benefits. The taxes gained from higher-income people can be redirected to affordable housing programs. There are various local and state tax subsidies that can be worked the same way.

Conclusion

The issue of affordable housing is a complex problem. The causes outlined are a beginning point for what others have written large reports about. The combination of people, regulatory agencies, and financing are the major causes and what needs to be addressed to make housing available for everyone at a reasonable price. Ultimately, more housing has to be produced on the same amount of land. This will require everyone to tolerate having neighbors closer by. Also, society as a whole will need to accept spending more for the less fortunate to have housing. Without these trade-offs, affordable housing becomes difficult to attain.

References

1. Bent, A. (2015). The Role of Root Cause Analysis in Public Safety ERM Programs In J.R.S. Fraser, B. Simkins, & K. Narvaev (Eds.) Implementing Enterprise Risk Management: Case Studies and Best Practices (2nd ed., pp. 397-425). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
2. Hickey, R. (n.d.) 2019 State of the Nation’s Housing Report. Retrieved from https://www.habitat.org/costofhome/2019-state-nations-housing-report-lack-affordable-housing
3. Lee, D. (2016). How Airbnb Short-Term Rentals Exacerbate Los Angeles’s Affordable Housing Crisis: Analysis and Policy Recommendations. Harvard Law & Policy Review, 10(1), 229–253. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=a9h&AN=114481034&site=eds-live&custid=spjc
4. Metcalf Gabriel. (2018). Sand Castles Before the Tide? Affordable Housing in Expensive Cities. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 32(1), 59. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.26297969&site=eds-live&custid=spjc
5. Porter, S. (2018, March 5). Pinellas County continues mission to add affordable housing. Tampa Bay Newspapers. Retrieved from https://www.tbnweekly.com/pinellas_county/article
6. Vogel, M. (2020, October 15). How to solve Florida’s affordable housing crisis. Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved from https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/2020/10/15/how-to-solve-floridas-affordable-housing-crisis/
7. Weathers, S. (2020, September 17). Affordable Housing Tenants Stuck in Moldy, Infested and Damaged Apartments. Retrieved from https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2020/09/17/tampa-affordable-housing-tenants-stuck-in-moldy--infested-and-damaged-apartments