Houses for the Homeless

By SAM URETSKY

The housing market is a (insert descriptive term here) mess. Of course it has been that way for a while, but that’s no reason to think that anything will improve. There’s a shortage of housing – builders aren’t building enough new housing, owners aren’t putting their homes on the market, mortgage rates are going up so that would-be buyers can no longer afford to buy a home and would-be renters are in an even worse position. The numbers are, at least distressing:

According to the most recent census data, there were 582,462 people experiencing homelessness in the United States in 2022. This number represents a 2,000 person increase from the last complete census conducted in 2020. The census data also showed that the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness, defined as those who have been homeless for more than a year or who have experienced multiple episodes of homelessness in the past three years, reached a record high of 127,768 in 2022.

These numbers seem small compared to the total populations of the United States, although they are almost certainly understated because of the difficulty in surveying people who have no fixed address. More significantly Mercy Housing, a non-profit with generally high rating from Charity Navigator, makes the point that too many families are unable to afford stable housing. They report that 25% of renters are spending half or more of their income on rent, and 2.6 million people are spending one third of their income for rent. This compares with the general guideline that housing costs, which includes electricity (which includes heat and/or air conditioning where needed) and water shouldn’t exceed 30% of gross income. There are roughly 40 million households in danger of becoming homeless.

The National Association of Realtors’ reported (Aug 23) that home prices saw a record increase in over half of the US housing market over the past quarter. The price for a median single-family home saw an increase in 53.8% of metropolitan housing markets. Market Insider made it clear: “The housing market is stuck: Americans can’t afford homes, investors aren’t buying property, and economists see little relief ahead.”

This is not limited to the major markets such as New York and California, which allowed people in rural areas to shrug their shoulders at “other peoples’ problems.” According to the New York Times, “in the years leading up to the pandemic, that condition advanced around the country: Springfield, Mo., stopped having enough housing. And the same with Appleton, Wis., and Naples, Fla.” Their map of areas with severe housing shortages includes Utah, Colorado, and Minnesota.

Again, these are small numbers compared to the challenges of global warming and the threat of nuclear war, and of course so much depends on controlling expense. Still, there are proposals that may help deal with some part of the problem. Forbes (June 22) headlined “330 Million Square Feet In Vacant Office Space Won’t Cure Housing Shortage” and noted that most of these conversions would be turned into luxury housing in major metropolitan areas – but there might be a reasonable hope of a sort of trickle down rentals as high income families might be inclined to move up, freeing other locations for lower income tenants. Another proposal was from Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), the “Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter Act of 2022 (HOUSES Act). The Congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) reports that this proposal “is a unique way to alleviate the housing shortage without interfering with state and local decision-making, by allowing states to purchase certain general public lands for the purpose of developing new housing. ... Home prices tend to be growing the fastest in the Western United States, where more than 50% of the land is owned by the federal government. More than 60% of Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Alaska is federal land.” “We estimate that under the HOUSES Act, an additional 4.7 million Americans could afford the average home in their state, spending less than 30% of household income on monthly mortgage payments.

Among those states that could benefit most from the HOUSES Act, the proposed legislation would increase the number of people who could afford the average home in their state by 52% in Idaho, 37% in Arizona, 34% in Oregon, 31% in California, 24% in Montana, 23% in Nevada, and 21% in Utah.” The bill appears not to have been presented to Congress, but the Committee reports “We estimate that in order to build 2.7 million new homes, the HOUSES Act would transfer just 0.1% (681,000 acres) of the 640 million acres of federal land to states and localities for housing development.”

Rep Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has introduced three less ambitious bills to help alleviate the housing shortage, but govtrack doesn’t give any of them a more than 2% chance of being passed into law.

Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in Louisville, Ky. Email sam.uretsky@gmail.com

From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2023

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