Tag Archives: affordable housing

Quick Review: Evicted

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I recently read Matthew Desmond’s much discussed work Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Here are my thoughts on the ethnographic work.

  1. The book is certainly readable as he tells the stories of a number of tenants and landlords in the Milwaukee area. The plight of the tenants is striking and the landlords are also an interesting group (particularly Sherrena who wanted to tell her story). Of course, such readability may not impress some sociologists who prefer more scientific prose (and who complain about the work of Venkatesh or Goffman) but this should reach a broader public. The narratives have some summary data and causal explanations sprinkled in but the emphasis is on the stories.
  2. One of the more impressive features of this work is the quantitative data that it also draws on. This information is buried in the footnotes but Desmond also developed several quantitative datasets that helped (1) suggest his stories are not unusual and (2) provide the broader patterns for an issue that is not studied much in sociology.
  3. The biggest takeaway for me: the number of evictions that take place on a regular basis.
  4. The subject area – evictions – certainly needs more attention. I’ve read my share of work on affordable housing in the last decade but rarely did I see this issue mentioned. As Desmond notes, big cities have a sizable population of people who consistently have to move around due to evictions. Even if there were more housing units – and big cities are often tens of thousands of units short of affordable units – evictions make it difficult to establish roots and settle kids into schools. The final chapter – where Desmond discusses the broader issue and possible solutions – leads off nicely with this idea of a good physical home as the centerpiece of a thriving society.
  5. That said, how common is this issue in suburban areas? As poverty moves to the suburbs as do increasing numbers of minorities, I would expect that evictions are not limited just to larger cities.
  6. One area that gets less attention in this ethnography that may also prove worthwhile to explore further is the legal apparatus. Desmond follows one of the eviction squads and provides some insights into the court process but it would be interesting to hear more from judges (who from the book seem to work against the tenants – though they may just be following the law) as well as local officials (how do public officials respond to these situations).
  7. A second area is thinking about the intersections of race and class. Desmond hints at the influence of race: comparing the experiences of blacks on the North Side of Milwaukee versus whites on the South Side, comments from black and white tenants about the possibilities for living in the other’s neighborhoods, briefly discussing the race of landlords. However, there is a lot more here to unpack, especially given Desmond’s other work on race. Take the two main landlords in the book: one is white, the other black. The first has a more stand-offish approach (working through intermediaries) while the second is more directly involved with tenants. Both are in it for the money and seem to be doing well. How much does their race matter?

An enjoyable read and a work I could imagine using with undergraduates who often have little to no experience with housing issues. I look forward to looking at Desmond’s journal articles that also build on this ethnographic and quantitative data.

Can McMansions count as affordable housing in some markets?

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A New Jersey fair housing group highlights a recent report that argued thousands of homes $300,000 and up counted as affordable housing.

On the face of it, this seems absurd: expensive large suburban homes might count as being within the reach of many Americans? Yet, there is the matter of the particular housing market that may affect such calculations. The priciest markets tend to be on the coast and whether one is examining the median sales price or the average list price (and this does matter – the median suggests half the homes sell for above and below that price and all 15 on this list are around $300k or higher), a $300,000 home might be difficult to find.

Now, whether such a home is within the reach of many in the region is another matter and it is likely not. Even with higher incomes in these metropolitan regions, there are still plenty of workers and residents who don’t see as much of a relative bump in their salaries. McMansions might be some of the cheaper homes available in pricier markets but that does not mean they are attainable.

Do any of these more expensive regions have interest in suggested plans to alter McMansions (see here and here) to make more cheaper housing? This would likely face opposition from nearby owners who would fight tooth and nail against any efforts to introduce multi-family housing.

Living as the only Section 8 resident in a wealthy suburb

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Mary Schmich tells the story of Winnetka’s sole Section 8 resident:

In a Chicago suburb where million-dollar homes are common and the median household income exceeds $200,000, Miranda held a rare distinction for a while: He was the only person in town with a Section 8 housing choice voucher.

With his large belly and his mustache, his T-shirt and his jeans, he was a notable presence in the village. He liked to be out and about — staying inside depressed him — and his subsidized one-bedroom apartment on Elm Street put him in the heart of Winnetka’s action, meaning close to the Metra station, a bookstore, a Peet’s, a Starbucks, restaurants and boutiques, most of which he couldn’t afford.

He was often spotted with a big coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other, maybe sitting on a park bench. He liked going to the library and, in the summer, relaxing by the lake…

Having a stable home of his own in a tranquil place offered him some peace that life otherwise denied him.

As much as residential segregation by race and ethnicity is present in the suburbs, this highlights another aspect: segregation by social class. According to the Census, Winnetka has over 12,000 residents, is very white – 94.8%, and also very wealthy – a median household income of over $207,000 and a median value of owner-occupied housing units of $941,800. How much affordable housing is available in places like Winnetka? Previous efforts to introduce the idea have met resistance. Does having any Section 8 residents threaten property values or the community’s image? Suburban residents don’t have to actively oppose such plans to provide space for poorer residents; their zoning and comprehensive plans can make their thoughts pretty clear. Would their opinions change if they met a person like Thomas Miranda? Maybe, but no matter how much they might like him as an individual, too many such residents of a certain status would not be good.

“Eager to Move to the City, but Stranded in the Suburbs”

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The New York Times recently profiled a number of suburbanites who would prefer to live in the big city but can’t because of high housing prices:

Like many others in her sociological cohort these days — men and women whose children are grown and who want to trade those unused rooms in Tudor- and Victorian-style houses, as well as the steep suburban property taxes, for the city’s excitement and convenience — Ms. Fomerand finds herself stranded in the suburbs.

These empty-nesters have reaped the benefits of the suburbs: They sent their children to excellent public schools and raised them in safety and comfort, in backyards, playrooms and cul-de-sacs. And their houses have increased nicely in value. Now they would like to find apartments with doormen and elevators so they don’t have to climb stairs, shovel snow and schlep packages. They want a place where they can “age in place,” as the phrase goes. But they are finding that in the past 15 years, prices for such apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn have risen far more than the values of their suburban homes, so much that they may never make it back to living in the city they always thought they would return to. Instead, they end up staying in their houses, or downsizing to smaller suburban homes or apartments.

To be sure, this is a problem largely felt by the comfortable: New Yorkers who have had the luck and income to live where they choose, who have had the luxury of planning and expecting a certain lifestyle when they grow older. These people could live less expensively in other cities, but often their family, friends and work are here, and they don’t want to leave the area.

“This is one of the most commonly discussed issues,” said Mark A. Nadler, director of Westchester sales for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. “People will say, ‘Yes, I’m moving to the city,’ but unless they’re wealthy, they end up resigning themselves to staying in the suburbs.”

Two quick thoughts in reaction to this piece.

  1. Those profiled in this story generally want to move to Manhattan or Brooklyn. Why don’t they consider moving to other parts of New York City? Underlying this could be continued ideas about what areas of New York City are desirable, safe, and more white. It is not really whether they can move to the city at all; it is more about whether they can move to the trendy neighborhoods in which they would prefer to live.
  2. There is only brief mention of affordable housing in a piece that is largely about housing prices. At the same time, this is kind of an odd note to hit; New York City prices are too high because a number of older suburbanites cannot find affordable housing in the city. If you want to talk about housing prices and affordable housing, why not highlight the less wealthy in the region who could truly benefit from such a move to the city (as opposed to doing so as a lifestyle choice)? Too often, stories about affordable housing highlight empty-nesters and downsizers (often alongside young professionals) – probably the sorts of people cities would love to have – rather than consistently examining the lives of lower-class residents.

Why are Chicago families fleeing for cheaper homes in the suburbs?

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The Chicago Tribune leads with the story of a Chicago family who left the city for a townhouse in River Forest:

Megan Keskitalo and her husband, Glenn Eckstein, were enthusiastic city dwellers until the suburbs began calling. First it was Chicago’s crime, then it was worry about school districts, and in the end, it was money that pushed them past the city’s edge.

After a long search, the parents of two young daughters packed up their $1,300-a-month three-bedroom Lincoln Square apartment and in September paid $286,000 for a three-bedroom town house in River Forest.

“We were looking (in the city), but we couldn’t find anything in our price range, which was under $350,000,” Keskitalo said.

But, just how many Chicago families are doing this? The story sticks to general trends without any numbers:

They aren’t the only ones. While experts say Chicago’s housing market is sizzling — home sales were up about 8.1 percent in Chicago through November of this year, says the Illinois Association of Realtors — not everyone can afford to buy in the city. That’s because home prices are up too…

It’s not unusual for millennials and Generation Xers with children to flee to what real estate experts call “surbans” — walkable, amenity-rich suburbs — once they get married, have kids and are looking for less party and more quiet.

The implication of this article is that families like this are being priced out of Chicago: they might stay if they could find housing in their price range in attractive neighborhoods. Yet, there is a lot more going on here:

  1. The article also says real estate prices are on the rise in Chicago. This is generally seen as a good thing – unless it pushes desirable people, like young white families (or recent college graduates or older long-time city residents) out.
  2. There are real issues of affordable housing in Chicago and the whole region. However, there is often disagreement about who such housing should serve. Should it help keep wealthier residents in a community or serve those with much lower levels of income? Chicago is building plenty of high-end condos but there is not much action on the lower end of the market with affordable units in decent neighborhoods.
  3. This family had particular conditions for where they were willing to live: less crime, good schools, cheaper housing. Overall, they wanted a particular quality of life. They could have found cheaper housing in Chicago but without being willing to compromise on these particular issues, they left for the suburbs.
  4. How much of this is tied to the ongoing process of white flight? This family left a trendy Chicago neighborhood for an established wealthy and white suburb: River Forest is roughly 85% white and the median household income is over $113,000. Again, they could have found cheaper housing in the city (#3 above) if they were willing to live in more places that might not have been as white.

Planning for more micro-apartments in NYC

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New York City may change its regulations to allow more micro-apartments:

Planning officials are proposing to end a limit on how small apartments can be, opening the door for more “micro-apartments” that advocates see as affordable adaptations to a growing population of single people. Critics fear a turn back toward the city’s tenement past and question whether less space will really mean less expensive…

As an experimental project, Carmel Place got city land and a waiver from New York’s 400-square-foot minimum on new apartments, set in 1987. A proposed elimination of that minimum would allow smaller studios in buildings with a mix of apartment sizes, but entire micro-unit buildings would continue to need waivers...

Forty percent of the units have rents set by affordable-housing programs topping out at around $1,500 a month, but market-rate ones rent for $2,650 to $3,150, roughly on par with many studios in the nearby Murray Hill neighborhood. About 20 people have applied and hundreds requested information for eight market-rate units so far, while over 60,000 have entered a lottery for the affordable ones…

But critics see micro-units as a step backward in the city’s affordable housing crunch – still pricey, just smaller.

The demand for any new housing is high in New York City and a number of other major cities like San Francisco. It seems like the trick with the micro-apartments is that there needs to be thousands of them available in a relatively short amount of time to really address affordable housing otherwise. In contrast, if the units just trickle out (whether from regulatory issues or opposition from nearby residents or apathy from developers), the smaller units will barely make a dent and the prices will stay sky high. It is either all in for micro-apartments or they simply become a unique housing option in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

Shadowy McMansion owners

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A letter to the editor in the New York Times suggests McMansions owned by shell companies are a big problem:

Your article on shell companies and real estate highlights a phenomenon not unique to ultra-wealthy areas of Los Angeles. Real estate purchases using the cover of limited liability companies are a significant issue in the San Gabriel Valley in eastern Los Angeles County, where McMansions owned by L.L.C.s sit empty as middle-class home buyers are priced out, unable to compete against those flush with foreign money from unknown and undisclosed sources.

New York, San Francisco, London and Vancouver are also experiencing this influx. In the United States, real estate brokers and agents are not required to comply with customer due diligence and know your customer mandates that banks and many non-bank institutions must follow.

This kind of argument makes McMansions seem even worse then they are typically depicted: they are owned by shadowy wealthy people who don’t care about the normal resident who just needs somewhere to live. The problem with this letter is that it doesn’t provide good data on how many homes actually fall into this category. Wealthy, culturally significant cities like the ones listed above – LA, NYC, San Francisco, London, Vancouver – do attract foreign investors (particularly Chinese investors recently in Vancouver and the LA area) but major cities tend to like this: it keeps new capital flowing into local coffers and it fuels the high-end construction industry (see Miami or London or New York).

In contrast, it is pretty clear that most major American cities don’t really want to talk about affordable housing and/or aren’t willing to do much about it. Affordable housing is needed in many major cities, particularly those along the coasts. Part of the reason McMansions exist in the first place is that Americans were willing to move further out from the city to buy a bigger house (and this has to with state policies and residential preferences to avoid urban life and non-whites). The resources that it takes to construct McMansions in the suburbs could be harnessed to build smaller urban units or at least denser suburban units (see these recent ideas to use the materials from McMansions or to subdivide McMansions into multiple units) but few governments want to mess with the single-family home market and few builders or developers want to limit their profits.

Countering the negative responses to micro-apartments

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As some city residents fight micro-apartments, here is a set of arguments countering the complaints:

Families often complain that there isn’t enough housing to suit their needs, especially for large families. They’re right. In Seattle, for example, just two percent of market-rate apartment units have three or more bedrooms, according to a 2014 report by the Seattle Planning Commission. The last thing that these families need—especially low-income families and larger families of color—is to compete with single, young professionals for that limited housing stock.

Yet zoning for approximately 65 percent of Seattle’s land area is designated single-family, meaning that the options across much of the city are restricted to what’s already been built. That’s good news for incumbent homeowners, but bad news for people who want to move to Seattle. The city’s not an outlier in this regard, of course: Low-density zoning spurs young renters to rent group houses (or “stealth dorms” as the case may be) all over the nation. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but when single renters can’t find good options in a growing job market, chances are that renting families won’t find them, either…

Incidentally, making sure that housing is legal, affordable, regulated, and, well, available is one way to guarantee against any truly adverse health effects from shared living. The alleged increased health costs specifically associated with micro-housing … well, I don’t want to say that they’re not bad. But they can’t be any worse than the health costs of unaffordable housing. It’s arguable that the stress of unsafe, uncertain, or unsustainable living situations—housing insecurity, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts it—outweighs the potential crowding-related stress of micro-apartment living…

It’s certainly the case that micro-housing looks trendy, in part because it is presented in savvy renderings by smart architectural firms such as nArchitects. But micro-apartments are also not a type of new housing we’ve never seen before. They’re apartments. Advances in technology and interior design make micro-housing possible without requiring that micro-apartments be tenements, boarding houses, or single-room-occupancy hotels. But the concept of multifamily living is preserved (even if the division of amenities changes).

A more charitable interpretation of the complaints of residents is that lots of affordable housing is needed across sectors: for poor residents, for families, for the elderly, for recent college graduates, and so on. Certain residents may just want the kind of housing that helps them and people like them more than they want to help others groups. A less charitable take might emphasize property values: who wants to live near these cheaper units (people may complain about health or traffic or density but they are more worried about what will happen to the value of their own unit) and the people who might live there (which underlies concerns Americans have about apartments)?

One solution to all of this would be to pay less attention to the exciting new idea of micro-apartments and for cities to comprehensively address housing issues with a range of solutions. Many major cities are short tends of thousands of affordable housing units and a few trendy micro-apartments aren’t going to do much. But, a more comprehensive plan could threaten even more people with a range of locations and housing options…

Building tiny houses for Chicago’s homeless

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A future community of tiny houses in Bronzeville could help Chicago’s homeless:

Tiny Homes Chicago, a venture from AIA Chicago, Landon Bone Baker Architects, Windy City Times, Pride, is of the firm belief that the tiny homes can help this group of people who are trying to positively contribute, but who are also being negatively affected by the transience of moving from shelter to shelter. Small homes would afford folks the ability to study and seek safety.

That’s why they’re creating a competition to create a Tiny Homes community in Bronzeville to alleviate affordable housing. This neighborhood would be a pilot prototype for other interested communities.

If you think you can come up with a solid design for a home, then attend the upcoming meeting on Wednesday, December 2 for Interested parties. The final proposals will address planned 12-unit developments, where residents have a safe secure space to sleep, study, and store their possessions. In addition, there would be a 1,200 s.f. communal space, as well as secure bike storage.

The 350 s.f. units themselves will have bathrooms, storage, and sleeping space. With a $30,000 limit on material and mechanical systems, the units need to come to life for under $60,000 and follow city building codes.

Tiny houses have been proposed for the homeless before (see here and here) and this effort in Chicago could serve to spur similar efforts. I imagine several important questions will arise during this competition:

  1. How many locations in Chicago could support even small tiny house developments like this one? While affordable housing is needed and the homeless need help, there may not be many neighbors who would want to be near such sites.
  2. Is the budget reasonable both to build lasting units and to make this an affordable project for funders?
  3. How will these housing units be paired with social services? Providing more permanent shelters could go a long way but so would jobs, education, health care, and other needs.

Photographing affordable housing in New York City

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With the expense of Manhattan and a booming luxury market in NYC, one sociologist shows what affordable housing looks like:

Garbage-strewn common areas, ominous graffiti, the twitching fluorescent stairwell lighting — these are the images most often associated with public housing. Even privately owned affordable housing is often seen as something bland and tiny you settle for, not aspire to. But David Schalliol, a photographer and sociology professor in Minnesota, sees a shift toward something that goes beyond the cliché…

In New York, however, he found that there was much more to the story. “Affordable housing means so many different things in New York City,” he said, citing developments, like Co-op City in the Bronx, that helped give the city a reputation for finding innovative ways to provide decent housing to middle- and working-class families.

Mr. Schalliol surveys this landscape in a new anthology, “Affordable Housing in New York: The People, Places and Policies That Transformed a City,” from Princeton University Press…

“One of the aims of this book, this project, is not only to demonstrate the wide variety of these developments, but also the common experience within them,” he said. “But it’s where people make their homes, where they meet their friends. They don’t just come home, they’re actively producing community.”

It would be interesting to see what sort of argument Schalliol makes in this book. The photos provided with the article suggest the people in New York City’s affordable housing are just trying to live a normal life. Yet, collections of photographs can counter stereotypes and help the broader public see what affordable housing really looks like. Perhaps the images could even help people see that having affordable housing nearby will not necessarily ruin their property values and lives.