High housing costs deny many a home

The other day I stopped into a Southeast Raleigh community center and talked to the man behind the counter. The center was built in the late 70’s and man has worked there for 20 years. He thinks that maybe their center will get the attention it deserves because the area is attracting new and more affluent residents.

I asked about the kids who enjoy the center and his face fell as he said, “the kids are gone. Families are being pushed out.” My heart sank and I went to sleep sad thinking about the families he talked about having to move further out on New Bern Avenue and Capital Boulevard, leaving “home” behind. We need to help empower people — whether they own or rent — to stay in their communities.

Millions of low-income working families struggle every day just to put a roof over their heads. Harvard research indicates that, after adjusting for inflation, rents have risen by 61 percent since 1960 while renters’ median earnings have only gone up 5 percent. Right now, only 43 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households in North Carolina. That’s a huge deficit for people trying to find a place to call home.

According to 2019 National Low Income Housing Coalition reports, North Carolina has the 30th highest housing wage, with an hourly wage of $20.88 required to afford a two-bedroom rental home in Wake County. Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom is $737 a month and $881 a month for a two-bedroom. It would take 94 hours of work at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 to afford that two-bedroom rental.

That’s a lot of time worked to make rent. These are people already working and still not able to make ends meet, let alone save for a home or their future.

I live in mid-north Raleigh and have an $847 monthly mortgage for a 1320 square foot townhouse recently appraised by Wake County at $161,000. I have a college degree but I don’t have family money to lean on and will have to refinance because an adjustable rate mortgage was my best bet for independent home ownership in 2016.

I think about “next steps” for myself and the family my husband and I want to create. That means the power to choose where we want to live so we can provide our family with access to good schools, health care, food, and community amenities.

The impact of housing on health is now being widely considered by policy makers. Housing is one of the best-researched social determinants of health, and selected housing interventions for low-income people have been found to improve health outcomes and decrease health care costs. Rising home costs are a major catalyst for continued segregation, inequality, lack of generational wealth, and reduced opportunities.

We need to do more to help Americans secure stable housing. We subsidize homeowners like me with generous tax breaks, but what are we doing for renters? Renters are a growing sector of the population, yet we do little to help people find secure, stable rental homes. But we could help by enacting a renters’ tax credit. This credit would provide a refundable federal tax credit for rental costs above 30 percent of household income (what HUD defines as “affordable”), up to 100 percent of the area’s Fair Market Rent. Columbia University researchers looking at one renters’ credit proposal estimate that 54 million would benefit and 9.4 million people would be lifted above the poverty line.

By providing renters relief from growing rental costs and, paired with measures to increase the supply of affordable housing, more families could find safe, affordable places to live. I implore our policy makers, from those at Raleigh City Hall, all the way to our congressmen George Holding and David Price, to think about innovative ways to support housing and transit as powerful social determinants for people’s families now and future.

This story was originally published February 24, 2020 at 11:15 AM.