News

New information from the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s analysis of US Census data shows the housing crisis in Kalamazoo County is getting much worse instead of better. The number of renters in Kalamazoo County increased to 35,645 households, still about a third of the county. But the number of extremely low income renter households increased by 38% from approximately 8,000 households to just under 11,000 households. These households earn 30% or less of the area median income, which means they are very poor. How poor? For a single person, it means their annual income is less than $13,300, or less than $1108 per month. Two-thirds of these households, or 7,405 households, pay over half their income for rent and utilities. These are households who are just one small crisis away from tipping into homelessness.

What is the housing gap we need to address? There are 2,755 rental units in our county that are affordable and available for this group. An apartment is affordable if you can pay your rent and utilities with 30% of your monthly income. To say an apartment is available to this group means that either an extremely low income household lives in the apartment or it is designated for extremely low-income individuals. This is relevant because some people with better incomes live in apartments that would be affordable to the poorest renters in our county. Another way to say this is that there are 43 affordable rental units in our county for every 100 extremely low income households. There are only 25 affordable units that are in fact available for every 100 extremely low income households.

So we need to create 8,230 rental units in our county that are affordable and available to extremely low income men and women and their families.

How can we do it?

P.S. Thanks to Kathy Roberts of LISC for sharing this information with me.

Sometimes when I discuss homelessness with someone it feels like we are speaking different languages and seeing different worlds. I’m reading a book called Homelessness in America that helps me understand what’s going on in these conversations.

For some, homelessness appears to be only a result of individual failings or weaknesses. Drug abuse, alcoholism, and personal irresponsibility are seen as the causes for homelessness.

For others, homelessness appears to be only a result of the lack of housing for people with low incomes. Since the 1980s in our country we have lost so much low-income housing and we haven’t replaced it. From this perspective, homelessness is an infrastructure problem; we haven’t created the housing our society needs.

On the first view the blame for homelessness rests primarily on the homeless individual. Those who see a lack of affordable housing as the cause of homelessness primarily place the blame on our housing infrastructure.

At Open Doors we work with elements of both these views at the same time. We feel that some people need to eliminate behaviors that increase the likelihood of homelessness. But every day we work with people who are working hard and being fully responsible who are priced out of the housing market.

At Open Doors we think people who have personal problems that caused them to lose their housing are valuable people in need of help and a second chance.  We also think that  the lack of housing for low-wage workers and low-income disabled people is the primary cause of homelessness.

To avoid or overcome homelessness, the individual must meet certain standards and accomplish certain objectives, and we routinely see low-income people accomplish amazing achievements despite incredible odds. But there also has to be housing that is available and affordable to the many people working in entry-level, low-paying jobs in our community and there must be housing that disabled people living on Supplemental Security Income can afford.

I just learned something that shocked me. The number of people in Kalamazoo County living on incomes below the poverty line grew from 12 percent in 1999 to 20.5 percent in 2010. There were 27,483 people living below the poverty line in 1999. By 2010 this number had increased to 49,724, an increase of 22,241 men, women, and children living in the misery of poverty. This represents a 71 percent increase over the decade.

I’m surprised that I had not heard about this huge increase in local poverty. I learned about it from reading a report prepared by the Kalamazoo County Community Action Agency called “Poverty in Kalamazoo County — 2012 Update.”

Did you know that our county had such a huge increase in poverty over the first decade of this century? How did you find out about it?