Affordable Housing for Who?
Rising rents, housing shortages, and inadequate living conditions are keywords that can be found in publications about urban housing across the country. After decades of divestment from cities and suburban flight, metropolitan areas are witnessing a swift change in settlement and development patterns. Walkable, dense urban cores are becoming increasingly favored over their suburban counterparts and as a result, city centers that were characterized by their decline for decades now enjoy influxes of new residents. These new faces belong to specific demographics, and are often part of the creative class, young professionals, or double income couples with no children. The addition of these groups to city centers has ignited a housing crisis that, policy wise, has been in the making for decades. There are historical implications that continue to affect urban populations and housing. The exclusionary practices of yesterday now manifest themselves as gentrification and displacement. A major challenge to twenty-first century American cities is the availability and affordability of adequate housing. Affordable housing is crucial to making urban spaces accessible and ensuring opportunity is available to their inhabitants. This seems to be overlooked in today’s cities in favor of savoring urban housing for new arrivals who typically have higher incomes than the residents who lived there before. The result is the displacement of the working class and poor to areas that further separate them from jobs, good education, and opportunity.
Exclusionary, unequitable housing practices are not new to American cities. They have existed for generations and flourished in the Jim Crow and post-World War II eras. Legal, de-jure segregation existed in the south and quickly confronted black Americans in new ways as they relocated to northern cities. Official ordinances and policies effectively relegated blacks and many ethnic whites to specific neighborhoods and restricted the development of adequate housing for growing urban populations. Though the “colored” and “white only” signs were left behind, there was no doubt that a racial order existed in northern cities. Less official forms of discrimination also played a role, including protective covenants that disallowed home sales to non-whites. While blacks who relocated north during the Great Migration fought for equal housing and found themselves stuck in overcrowded neighborhoods with inadequate and outdated housing, city leaders ignored their calls and moved forward with projects that demolished units in favor of grandiose civic centers, luxury apartments, and urban highways catering to whites that were fleeing to and beyond the city limits. Dense, lower class neighborhoods were designated as slums, razed, and many, if replaced at all, were done so with lower density developments or public housing units systematically isolated from the cities that surrounded them. Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law explains:
The federal government pursued two important policies in the mid-20th century that segregated metropolitan areas. One was the first civilian public housing program which frequently demolished integrated neighborhoods in order to create segregated public housing. The second program that the federal government pursued was to subsidize the development of suburbs on a condition that they be only sold to white families and that the homes in those suburbs had deeds that prohibited resale to African-Americans. These two policies worked together to segregate metropolitan areas in ways that they otherwise would never have been segregated.
Twentieth century urban housing policy laid the groundwork for the housing shortage and affordability crisis seen today. It was marked by not only segregation, but also decentralization, sprawl, and auto oriented development. This took owning a home further out of the realm of affordability and made tactics like redlining easier to carry out and sustain. Exemplary housing developments like Levittown were marred with racist policies. Shapiro explained “What the federal government did, the FHA, is guarantee bank loans for construction and development to Levittown on condition that no homes be sold to African-Americans and that every home have a clause in its deed prohibiting resale to African-Americans” (Shapiro 2017). These policies also facilitated the emptying of urban centers and a sharp decrease in the building and desirability of efficient housing typologies. Single family, low density housing projects were often the only ones that would receive support from the Federal Housing Administration. These were almost always marked by exclusions for black Americans wishing to be homeowners. Beyond policy, this reality also became a social norm. The American dream meant your own home with a lawn and a place to put your car, not a life on busy urban streets lined with apartments and row homes. For whites, this dream meant neighborhoods free of people who did not look like them, and the federal government supported the entire venture.
The equal housing crisis of the twentieth century was most obvious in Detroit. Thousands migrated to the city in pursuit of manufacturing jobs, better wages, and the “American dream.” Many were met with a city not ready to support them and the demand they brought for housing. Detroit’s response was a building boom that resulted in hundreds of miles of single family tract homes. These housing developments were saved for white families who were the only ones qualified for FHA loans. The neighborhoods they left behind were doomed to decline as banks and the FHA refused to distribute loans to build new homes and renovate existing ones in inner cities. This led to continued decline and lack of investment in urban cores that needed them the most.
While the federal government funded and baited whites to suburban safe-havens, public housing was seen as the solution for blacks, many immigrants, and ethnic whites. “The walls of the ghetto were buttressed after 1950 by government programs that promoted slum clearance and relocated displaced ghetto residents into multi story high density housing projects” (Massey, Denton 1993). These projects cleared slums and replaced them with new, government subsidized housing which was supposed to be seen as a positive thing for blacks seeking affordable, adequate housing. In essence, public housing was a means of social engineering which sought to concentrate black populations into isolated areas of cities. A simple aerial view of a twentieth century housing project generally reveals the existence of pre-war row homes and post-war high-rises. These developments appear as cities within cities and are usually configured in a way that places them inside super-blocks, effectively removing them from the walkable street grid, encouraging outsiders not to come in, and inhabitants not to go out. Many public housing projects had their own schools, and some even boasted shopping options, all features that encouraged residents not to leave their confines. For ethnic whites, public housing was an option that allowed them to accumulate wealth and move into better neighborhoods. For blacks, public housing became a multi-generational prison that separated them from the resources and life that should have been available to them in the cities they lived in.
Ironically, the same characteristics that once made inner cities undesirable are now trendy. Populations flock to cities with busy streets, high density housing, access to transit, and historic structures. Before this, busy streets would be deemed a nuisance, high density housing would be labeled too crowded, transit would be considered inferior to private vehicles, and historic structures demolished for being obsolete. Though changing social trends have given urban America new life, the housing policies of the past have not kept up with new demands and cities’ most vulnerable residents have paid the price.
The lived experience of housing vulnerable populations is one that is usually overlooked and ignored. The existence of an urban underclass began in the twentieth century and continues in different forms today. These are the people who live in places no one else wants to. Housing vulnerable populations endure poor living conditions within their own homes, poor environmental conditions in the community outside their homes, and are usually subjected to heightened policing and supervision from landlords. To a great extent, housing vulnerable populations are treated as disposable. They experience displacement, policing, and eviction at higher rates than others. Sociologist Matthew Desmond lived in a trailer park to understand this phenomenon and observe housing vulnerable populations:
Drawing on an analysis of eviction records from Milwaukee, a city of roughly 600,000, this article finds eviction to be a frequent occurrence. Even before the housing crisis began in 2007, thousands were evicted from their homes each year. Between 2003 and 2007, landlords evicted roughly 16,000 adults and children from 6,000 units in an average year. To place these figures in perspective, consider that the number of families evicted in Milwaukee in an average year is equivalent to the number of families forced out of public housing in Chicago, a city with approximately five times the population, over the course of a decade. Almost half of the city’s evictions took place in predominantly black inner-city neighborhoods, where one renter-occupied household in 14 was evicted annually (Desmond 2012).
This data shows not only that housing vulnerable populations are easily removed, but also that their spaces are often coveted by other low income, low opportunity families. They are easily removed because they are so readily replaced by other families. The displacement of black families that began in cities in the twentieth century as slum clearance, urban renewal, and highways now continues through a foreclosure and eviction crisis.
Poor communities are marked very often by public health challenges that negatively affect their well-being on the day to day basis. These include limited access to fresh food, grocery stores, and healthcare, increased pollution, dangerous infrastructure, and crime. In Detroit, one ZIP code, 48217, exemplifies the way poor communities are subjected to environmental violence. The area includes the Boynton and Oakwood Heights neighborhoods and is bordered by the neighboring communities of River Rouge, Ecorse, and Melvindale. Here modest single-family homes sit in the shadow of a Marathon oil refinery and industrial wasteland to the north. The heavy stench of sulfur fills the air daily and tons of carbon emissions billow from industrial stacks that loom nearby. City and state officials have continued to increase the limit for emissions allowed in the area and have allowed the oil refinery to expand its footprint and operations several times. “According to Michigan’s Department of Public Health, the 48217 zip code has consistently high rates of cancer and mortality rates from cancer (Lewis, 2014). Both communities are exposed daily to extraordinary levels of pollutants, benzene in particular, a known human carcinogen. As such, one community is not more exposed than the other. Despite this, in 2008 Marathon Oil announced plans for a $2.2 billion expansion; part of this plan was to buy up homes in nearby Oakwood Heights to create a ‘100-acre green buffer zone’ (Abbey-Lambertz, 2012). This buffer zone included only 10 homes from the largely black Jefferies subdivision of the Boynton neighborhood” (Benz 2017).The area is choked by industry and a major interstate. It once housed workers who labored just down the road at the Ford Rouge Assembly Plant. Its residents now lack access to quality education, opportunity, and more often than not are unqualified for jobs in the industrial sites that effectively kill them every day.
The discourse surrounding today’s affordability crisis usually does not take more than a glance at housing vulnerable populations and instead focuses on the lack of available units for outsiders wanting to make the move to urban centers. “The poorest 10 percent of households were most likely to leave America’s cities between 2000 and 2014” (Florida 2017). This only continues the process displacing vulnerable residents and making units inaccessible to those who need them the most. Gentrification is a contentious economic and emotional issues. No one group is fully responsible for it. In The New Urban Crisis “Richard Florida explains that “Gentrification is the product of forces that go far beyond the individual desires and preferences of the young, educated, and affluent who are moving into cities today, or of the artists and musicians who occupied the lofts of the 1970s and 1980s. Gentrification is shaped by much bigger and broader forces, among them the large-scale public and private investments that structure the choices individuals make, and in doing so, alter the trajectories of neighborhoods and cities” (Florida 2017). There are many players in the swift changes that take place in America’s cities.
For homeowners, the affordability crisis takes the form of foreclosure which has ravaged neighborhoods of color especially since before the economic crisis of 2009. Many blacks who were able to make the jump to homeownership have lost them in tax foreclosure and those left behind in city center rental units now face being priced out and displaced. In Wayne County, foreclosure has opened up parcels to being unfairly distributed to large developers. Property taxes have been over-assessed and poor owners simply cannot afford to stay in their homes.
It has become increasingly obvious that despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and other progressive housing legislation, America’s system of housing is designed to move poor people as the more privileged see fit. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was supposed to politically solve the issue of residential segregation, but after years of restricting the poor and vulnerable to city centers, they are now being forced into an exodus away from the communities they have called home and have institutions to serve them. In Midtown Detroit, poor residents have been moved away from areas with social service centers that provided aid and meals. Public housing has been razed across the country in an effort to create “mixed income housing” that places heavy restrictions on the poorest residents. Building more housing is only part of the solution.
The meddling of the federal government in housing and suburbanization set cities behind the curve of building adequate housing. Cities like Detroit went forward with small, lower density projects that now fail to meet the needs of the city. Zoning has also played a part and made it increasingly difficult to build housing at the efficient densities needed in urban areas. The investment required to build well-scaled housing is often blocked by residents in the name of preserving neighborhood culture. Zoning and city regulations can also severely drive up the cost of new developments, making them unaffordable from conception and impossible to get off the ground.
Housing is crucial to the health and viability of American cities. A decent mix of housing typologies and prices ensures urban populations can live and thrive through access to the many resources cities make available. Large and small-scale development is crucial to maintaining balance in communities and ensuring a healthy work force, tax base, and flow of knowledge and ideas. The questions of affordability, safety, and access must be answered through a wholistic and data driven approach to providing housing at levels that everyone can access.
Affordable housing policy today is deeply flawed and does not meet the needs of the populations it intends to protect. Solutions like rent control have saved the idea of affordability for some but have failed to meet the growing need for affordable units in cities. The increasing costs of development in cities has largely de-incentivized creating housing people can afford in favor of maximizing profit. The large influx of residents to new cities has also ignited contention between new and existing communities. Many are resistant to the changes that are inevitable in the urban environment and resist higher density for fears of changes to the neighborhoods they have come to know. There is also a deep level of classism that drives the affordability crisis. The addition of affordable units carries with it a negative connotation that developers and activists have to combat before moving forward.
Cities take many different approaches to solving the issue of affordable housing, however many policies do not provide ideal outcomes for individuals wanting to live in urban areas. This has led to a disparity in who benefits from new housing policies as many Detroiters in need fall well below the threshold of qualification. This prompts the question of how urban housing policies perpetuate inequality in access to affordable housing. City governments have had to take the lead on legislation related to affordability in housing. They have crafted requirements for a certain amount of affordable units to be included in new developments that receive subsidy and incentives to build. This definition of affordability, however is often based on numbers that still leave the vulnerable in need of new options. In Detroit, the combined statistical area by which average median income is determined includes wealthier suburban areas. This makes the threshold of affordability much higher than reality for the average Detroiters. The city often pushes affordable units for families that earn between 60-80% of the average median income. The average poor Detroiter, however makes far less than that and often hovers around 30-40% of the average median income. This presents affordability challenges that the city has a hard time addressing. “According to a study prepared by HR&A, 97 percent of rental units are affordable — meaning that the household spends no more than 30 percent of its monthly income on rent and utilities — for those making 80 percent of AMI. Eighty-six percent are affordable for those making 60 percent of AMI and 67 percent are affordable to those earning 50 percent of AMI. However, just 23 percent of the units are affordable for those making 30 percent or less of AMI” (Pinho 2017). There are almost no federal or state resources available to build housing for families making this little. Additionally, programs to renovate existing housing and improve communities often put these families in danger of displacement because of increased demand. Cities are repeating the cycle seen in the urban renewal era that included investing in development and infrastructure instead of people. If this continues, poverty will only deepen and further complicate the issue of housing in urban areas. Cities can maximize infrastructure and development investments by reforming zoning and policy codes and planning for infrastructure that prioritizes transit and density over sprawl. Cities must also invest in residents by addressing education, health, and employment in meaningful ways that can help elevate individuals out of poverty.
Federal policy still supports sprawl and low-density housing. Resources still flow into highway expansion projects and have been slow to return to city centers where they are needed the most. The astronomical amount of money and political currency that was put into suburbanization and urban abandonment must be matched to fix the problems these policies left behind. Cities cannot do it alone.
Current housing policies have entrenched America’s cities in a housing crisis that has been in the making for decades. Urban renewal, suburbanization, federal highway building, public housing and its destruction, gentrification, and ineffective affordable housing quotas have all worked together to further deepen the gap between rich, poor, and middle class. The poor and people of color have been systematically denied the first step to the American dream and wealth building and as a result, they continue to bear the brunt of the crisis. Rapid changes in city life have historically trampled on the vulnerable and still to do so today. The question of who gets affordable housing is one that city and federal governments have faltered on time and time again. The insistence on segregation and the concentration of poverty have limited change and solutions for people who need them the most. As the affordable housing policies of the twenty-first century are developed and tested, the central question to any policymaker must be who will benefit.
Works Cited
Benz, T. A. (2017). Toxic Cities: Neoliberalism and Environmental Racism in Flint and Detroit Michigan. Critical Sociology,089692051770833. doi:10.1177/0896920517708339
Desmond, M. (2012). Eviction and the Reproduction of Urban Poverty. The SAGE Handbook of the 21st Century City,104-140. doi:10.4135/9781526402059.n7
Desmond, M. (2017). Evicted: poverty and profit in the American city. London: Penguin Books.
Florida, R. (2017). The new urban crisis: How our cities are increasing inequality, deepening segregation, and failing the middle class – and what we can do about it. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Goering, J., Kamely, A., & Richardson, T. (1997). Recent Research on Racial Segregation and Poverty Concentration in Public Housing in the United States. Urban Affairs Review, 32(5), 723-745. doi:10.1177/107808749703200506
Massey, D. S., & Denton, N. A. (2003). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nall, C. (2018). The road to inequality: How the federal highway program polarized America and undermined cities. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Pinho, Kirk. "Ordinance would Require Affordable Housing." Crain's Detroit Business 33.8 (2017): 3. ProQuest. Web. 26 Apr. 2018.
Rothstein, R. (2017, May 17). 'The Color Of Law' Details How U.S. Housing Policies Created Segregation [Interview by A. Shapiro]. National Public Radio.