Tag Archives: workforce housing

Fair housing news from all over

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We begin the week with bulletins from unlikely places that nevertheless bear on what this here website is all about…

It seems that lots of people who work in Mount Pleasant (population 75,000) can’t afford to live there. (Sound familiar?) The town has something called a “workforce housing” plan, intended to encourage development of housing that people who make 80-120 percent of the area’s median income can afford, but the plan hasn’t produced much. And now, there’s talk of eliminating the plan’s density bonuses so that even less affordable housing would result.

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And this is a region where about half the residents already spend more than half their income on housing. The good news, we suppose, is that the town has a workforce housing plan and density bonuses to begin with. That’s more than can be said for some communities. The challenge – in Mount Pleasant and elsewhere — is to ensure that they actually come to something.

The editorial comes to a conclusion that sounds rather familiar: “The town needs a healthy mix of residents to remain vibrant and prosperous in the future, and those residents – of all income levels – will need a place to live.”

(By the way the Post and Courier won the public-service Pulitzer this year for a series on domestic violence against women – a prize citation that the newspaper reminds us of on its masthead – so, as newspapers go, it’s fairly reputable.)

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Since 1969 Massachusetts, to its credit, has had an affordable housing program called Chapter 40B. Chapter 40B permits the overriding of local zoning bylaws to allow affordable housing development in towns where less than 10 percent of the housing stock is affordable.

More than 50,000 units have been developed over the years, statewide. The problem noted by the letter-writer is that some recent projects have been targeted to urban areas that already have their share of affordable housing, rather than to the “leafy suburbs.” The takeaway point here is that a good measure of new affordable housing units should be located in middle-income and upper-middle income areas, not just in the same old places.

  • Lastly, an update on what appears to be the longest-running fair housing case in the country.

Back in 1971, Hamtramck, Mich., was found to have violated civil rights of black residents by razing their neighborhoods as part of urban renewal. The remedy was supposed to be provision of 200 family housing units and 150 senior housing units, we learn from an Associated Press account. Well, it seems that Hamtramck still hasn’t made good, and the judge who presided over the case originally is still determined, at age 93, to see it through.

Here’s hoping that protracted case in Westchester County, N.Y., is resolved sooner.

 

Jobs and affordable housing, Part 3

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A while back, we introduced the workforce housing index – namely, the number of subsidized housing units for each 100 jobs in a community.  

And we listed Vermont municipalities with 2,000 jobs or more — we called them “major employment centers” — with their respective indices. Winooski topped them all, followed by Barre City and Springfield.

Well, what about the rest of the state – especially the municipalities with 500 to 2,000 jobs, which we’ll call “medium employment centers”? How do they rate?

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Let’s start with the municipalities that have zero subsidized units — that is, places that are fairly strong on employment opportunity but weak on housing affordability. Here they are, with their 2014 jobs from a Department Labor database in parentheses:

Cambridge (1,390 jobs in 2014), Charlotte (524), Clarendon (1,292), East Montpelier (685), Fairlee (540), Ferrisburgh (547), Highgate (616), Hyde Park (690), Jay (730 jobs in third quarter), Killington (1,735), New Haven (641), Shaftsbury (530), Stratton (529) and Thetford (621).

On the other end, the “medium employment center” with the most subsidized units per 100 workers is Brandon. Brandon had 1,374 jobs and 156 subsidized units, for a workforce housing index of 11.4 — that is, 11.4 units for every 100 workers employed in the town.

Going down the list of municipalities that had between 500 and 1,999 jobs):

Williamstown: 11.3 (subsidized housing units per 100 workers)

Enosburg: 10.1

Townshend: 9.7

Windsor: 9.4

Chester: 9.0

Fair Haven: 8.5

Vernon: 8.5 (note: data preceded Vermont Yankee closing)

Richford: 7.3

West Rutland: 6.9

Ludlow: 5.5

Hardwick: 5.2

Johnson: 5.2

Bradford Town: 5.2

Northfield: 4.9

Poultney: 4.8

Swanton: 4.8

Barton: 4.4

Londonderry: 4.3

Arlington: 4.0

Pittsford: 3.8

Castleton: 3.7

Jericho: 3.3

Putney: 3.2

Waitsfield: 3.1

Dorset: 3.0

Dover: 2.8

Barre Town: 2.8

Norwich: 2.5

Fairfax: 2.4

Bristol: 2.4

Richmond: 2.2

Hinesburg: 2.1

Warren: 1.7

Waterbury: 1.6

Derby: 1.5

Royalton: 1.4

Westminster: 1.1

Georgia: 0.9

Wilmington: 0.6

Rockingham: 0.6

Now, when we bring income data into the mix, we find that there’s a rough, inverse correlation between median family income and the number of subsidized housing units. That’s not surprising. One might expect richer towns to have less housing for low-income people. The pattern doesn’t always hold, though.

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Of the 14 municipalities that have no subsidized housing units, 10 have median family incomes above the state average, and four below.

And in the list above, four of the first five municipalities — the ones with the most subsidized units relative to their numbers of employees — are above average in median family income.

Nevertheless, it’s clear that there’s plenty of room to grow affordable housing in the more well-to-do municipalities. After all, shouldn’t lower-paid employees who work in those towns be able to live there? That’s in keeping with the goal of promoting fair housing choice for everyone in low-poverty, high-opportunity locations — places with ready access to good services, schools and transportation.

Burlington’s housing-wage gap

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Burlington needs more affordable housing, lots of it. Affordable rentals, especially. After all, renting households far outnumber owner households in this city, and by any measure, they’re financially stressed. On average, according to a city report last year, Burlington’s renters pay 44 percent of their income on housing. More than one-third of Burlington’s renters pay more than half their income on housing. That’s what’s known among housing specialists as a severe burden.

Because of inclusionary zoning, we can be fairly confident that new, affordable rental units will be made available wherever big new developments go in. The hope here, at the Fair Housing Project, is that such developments be spread around the city. Not all the new affordable units have to go in the Old North End!

The South End would seem to be prime candidate for more subsidized, multi-family housing, and as far as we’re concerned, the Hill should be another possibility. Granted, there’s a trade-off between the price of land and the number of units that can be developed on a given tract; but still, we support the idea of locating a decent share of new affordable housing in low-poverty areas.

Here’s an interesting perspective on Burlington’s unaffordability from the point of view of low-wage workers. Consider five occupational categories that lead the state in numbers of workers: cashiers, personal care aids, retail salespeople, food prep workers and wait staff. Look at this graphic (courtesy of the National Housing Conference’s “Paycheck to Paycheck” that shows what annual income is needed to rent an apartment in Burlington without being burdened; and how their incomes compare:

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Incidentally, personal care aide is one of the state’s fastest growing occupations. That’s a testament to the greying of Vermont, because personal care aides assist elderly or disabled adults. Is it too much to ask that personal care aides be able to find affordable housing in the same communities where they serve their clients?

What about home ownership in Burlington for these workers? Similarly out of reach:

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Jobs and affordable housing, Part 2

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It’s not uncommon to hear Vermont employers complain that the high cost of housing is a deterrent to recruiting employees. Everyone knows Vermont needs more affordable housing. The question is, where should new affordable housing best be located?

The Fair Housing Project contends that it should be located near town centers, in mixed income areas that have good access to employment, transit and other services.

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Some municipalities offer more affordable housing than others. In an effort to throw some light on where the needs are, we introduced the workforce housing index in our last post. This is the number of subsidized housing units for every 100 jobs in a town. Subsidized units are affordable, by definition, to people earning up to 80 percent the region’s median income, including workers in relatively low paying jobs. (Granted, affordable housing is also in short supply for middle-income workers – teachers or police officers, for example. A more comprehensive workforce housing index would take their needs into account, too.)

Without further ado, here’s how Vermont’s “major employment centers” rank in providing affordable housing. Again, the index is the number of subsidized housing units per 100 jobs:

Winooski: 24.5

Barre City: 9.9

Springfield: 7.5

Brattleboro: 6.9

Burlington: 6.8

Randolph: 6.3

Vergennes: 6.3

Rutland City: 6.1

St. Johnsbury: 5.9

St. Albans Town: 5.7

Bennington: 5.5

St. Albans City: 4.1

Manchester: 4.0

Montpelier: 3.9

Colchester: 3.7

Middlebury: 3.3

Newport: 3.2

South Burlington: 3.2

Lyndon: 2.9

Rutland Town: 2.7

Essex: 2.5

Stowe: 2.2

Morristown: 2.2

Hartford: 2.0

Williston: 1.7

Shelburne: 1.6

Waterbury: 1.6

Derby: 1.5

Milton: 1.4

Woodstock: 1.2

Rockingham: 0.6

A couple of observations: Municipalities with public housing authorities tend to rank high on the list, as might be expected. As for other towns that don’t have public housing authorities, well, some are clearly pulling their weight more than others.

In Chittenden County, Burlington and Winooski have the great majority of subsidized units, but they account for less than half the jobs. (The jobs total of Williston, South Burlington and Essex alone exceeds that of Burlington-Winooski.) Clearly, other Chittenden County towns have a ways to go in meeting the affordable housing needs of their workforces.

Jobs and affordable housing, Part 1

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“Workforce housing” has become a popular term among housing advocates. Its definition varies, but for our purposes, it simply means affordable housing that’s fairly close to the workplaces of lower-and middle-income people.

Now, the ideal is that all the people who make a town’s economy run — the cashiers and the teachers, the home health-care aides and the police officers, the waitresses and the accountants, the secretaries and the tradespeople, from carpenters and plumbers to electricians — should all be able to live in town, if they want. That’s a form of population diversity — in skill sets, in housing options — that the Fair Housing Project wants to encourage: affordable housing for people of mixed incomes near their work sites.

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Well then, one might well wonder how the job locations and the affordable housing units in Vermont match up … or don’t, town by town.

There’s no easy way to get at this, but here’s a proxy approach:

Look at municipalities that are employment centers and see how many units of subsidized housing they have.

Of course, “subsidized housing” typically refers to housing for people earning up to 80 percent of the median income, so it’s not the same as housing that accommodates a wide-ranging workforce of middle and above average incomes. But at least we can get an idea of which employment centers are more or less accommodating of lower-paid workers — the cashiers and personal care aides, for example, the two occupations with the most numerous openings in Vermont, according to the Department of Labor. We’ll assume that full-time cashiers and personal care aides qualify for subsidized housing. (Cashiers’ median hourly wage in Vermont last year was $9.73; personal care aides’, $10.99. By contrast, Vermont’s “housing wage” — the hourly rate needed to afford an average apartment without paying more than 30 percent of income– was $19.36.)

As for “employment centers” there were more than 80 Vermont municipalities that offered 500 jobs or more in 2014, according to Department of Labor statistics.

Of those, more than 30 had 2,000 jobs or more. Arbitrarily, we’ll call those the “major employment centers.”

To find out how many subsidized housing units each municipality has, we simply go to the Directory of Affordable Housing on the Housing Data website , pull up all the site-specific units for each town, and add them up.

With these two figures for each municipality — number of jobs and number of subsidized (affordable) housing units — we can derive a seat-of-the-pants workforce housing index: How many subsidized units for each 100 jobs. The higher the index, the more “workforce housing” that community provides.

Well, it turns out that all but one of Vermont’s major employment centers have a workforce housing index under 10 – that is, they each have fewer than 10 affordable housing units for every 100 workers.

The exception is Winooski, where the index is a whopping 24. (The city occupies a mere square mile, much of which is included in the aerial photo above.) Winooski had 2,799 jobs in 2014 and 687 subsidized housing units — the friendliest affordability ratio in Vermont by far.

Which major employment centers in Vermont had the fewest subsidized units? Stay tuned.