From the Philly Inquirer:
For just about all but people in the top income brackets, there is a crisis of housing affordability in the United States, observers say.
Middle-income American service workers, especially those earning between $20,000 and $50,000 a year, have suffered the most, said William Hudnut 3d, an Urban Land Institute fellow and ex-mayor of Indianapolis.
“Workforce housing is a touchy topic that generates a lot of talk but not a lot of attention – except that it should be built somewhere else,” Hudnut said.
Workers in need of such housing are often referred to as “those people.” But that’s an unfair categorization, Hudnut said, because they are providers of critical services – dental assistants, auto mechanics, schoolteachers, police and firefighters – “the backbone of our economy who are getting squeezed by the housing-jobs imbalance that permeates our country.”
In many cities, there is no affordable housing close to employment centers, which forces people to live far from where they work. “Those of us in land use know that the disconnect is a real problem, with major social, economic and environmental implications,” he said.
…
Although a lot of commuters are willing to live farther out in the suburbs, Hudnut said, “they don’t factor in the cost of that commute . . . as a rising expense.”“This suggests a lingering gap between perception and reality,” he said. “These moderate-income workers probably don’t know that desirable affordable housing close to jobs is an option. It can be developed close to jobs in a way that can provide a high quality of life in proximity to amenities and work.
“Far-flung suburban living is not sustainable in conserving land and energy,” he said.
There is an underlying issue here, one I have written about on this blog before, but one always worth returning to:
Simply put, there are many jobs that do not pay a living wage (I hate using that phrase because it sets up political walls, but there is no better way to say it.) and subsidized housing is a half-measure that keeps us from seeing a bigger issue.
As long as people can only find jobs that don’t pay enough for them to pay for the expenses they are reasonably expected to incur, we will have the creation of aid programs designed to meet specific needs, whether it be health care (S-CHIP, Medicaid), housing (Mt. Laurel, Section 8), or even food (food stamps).
At the end of the day though, it must be acknowledged that there are too many jobs that don’t pay enough for people to meet their basic needs, and losing a job, particularly due to a health issue, puts too many people in an economically untenable situation.
If every job in NJ paid enough to afford clean decent housing in NJ, it would not have to be subsidized. I’m not saying a person should be paid $25 an hour for working the grill or cash register at Burger King, (I don’t think they should) I just think we need to keep in mind the root of the problem.
We need to acknowledge that there are people who are only qualified to work at Burger King, or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart and then go from there. In one sense the government programs we think of as subsidizing these individuals could just as easily be thought of as a subsidy for those businesses that employ them, sort of like the tax breaks that companies get for locating a new plant in an area.
In the lehigh valley medium income is under 38k and houses pre 2000 were selling for under 100k, that’s normal. It’s going to get back there and then some. I expect our local bubble to change prices to 1997 or lower values. It’s happening now and will play out for a few more years.
Burger King is not a “career,” and those who make it one, have no one to blame but themselves.
That’s the great thing about this country, you can change your “qualifications” by going to school (via Federally-funded grants and loans, as well as personal education loans with deferred interest).
Those who remain “unqualified,” and do nothing about it, have no one to blame but themselves.
Workers in need of such housing are often referred to as “those people.” But that’s an unfair categorization, Hudnut said, because they are providers of critical services – dental assistants, auto mechanics, schoolteachers, police and firefighters – “the backbone of our economy who are getting squeezed by the housing-jobs imbalance that permeates our country.”
It’s clear that it’s everyday hard working people from many professions that are being affected by housings’ unaffordability.