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Pandemic is reshaping American life right in front of us. Jobs that somehow couldn’t be done remotely have suddenly been revealed as perfectly telecommutable. It turns out that we can live without basketball for a while. Paid sick leave could be here to stay. And now, more than ever before, we realize how interconnected we are, and how, in many ways, we need to challenge preconceived notions about what is — and is not — good for society.
Among the assumptions that need to be challenged are the ones about the housing market. I say this because we are about to be awash in housing chaos. I’ve spent more than 12 years as an entrepreneur in the affordable housing and construction space, and it’s clear to me that in many respects, the impact of the current pandemic on affordable housing has already been more significant than the last crisis. And we’re only a few weeks in.
We Need Affordable Housing Options, Now More Than Ever
Even though several cities and states have begun blocking evictions and foreclosures, many people are soon going to find themselves at the end of a lease with nowhere to go and less money to get there. Policymakers are trying to mitigate this with mortgage forbearances and the like, but the demand for affordable housing can still be expected to skyrocket as the job market disintegrates.
Affordable housing is scarce under the best circumstances. I live in Atlanta, long held as a model of working-class affordability, but more than half of our region’s workers earn less than $3,400 per month, the amount needed to afford a market-rate one-bedroom apartment.
As an example, one of the members who lives in one of our shared homes called our staff in March, trying to figure out how to manage her losses gracefully. She teaches cycling classes part-time in Buckhead, an affluent neighborhood. The classes are gone — the gym is closed for the duration. Those classes were her lifeline while she worked on longer-term projects, the hustle that 20-something Atlantans live with every day.
She has multiple housemates because that’s what it takes to afford to live here while working your way up. It’s the same story in New York, San Francisco and even Austin or New Orleans. Not coincidentally, every one of these cities has a homeless population that has exploded in recent years. Atlanta has avoided the scale of those cities’ problems so far. But the current crisis may be the breaking point.
Debunking Housing Misconceptions
America’s housing policies operate under assumptions: Single-family housing is good; multifamily housing is bad, and many people sharing one house is worse. A wave of people looking for shelter in the wake of economic dislocation will challenge those assumptions that history already proved wrong a long time ago. Many of the most sought-after communities in America have a mix of housing types and uses, and have been that way for centuries. What do those neighborhoods have that makes them so attractive? The corner bakery, the walkable retail areas, neighborhood schools. But how can we expect to recreate these types of communities without accommodating the bakers, shopkeepers or teachers?
There’s not even really a shortage of residential square footage for these workers — we just aren’t efficiently using what we have. While the average household size in the U.S. has dropped substantially since 1975, the average home size has nearly doubled. Of course, low-income workers don’t currently have access to this extra space and are left with few, if any, respectable options. But we can use the existing residential space as high-quality housing for them, if we allow ourselves to.
The Need To Change Housing Legislation
In the suburbs of metro Atlanta, in the region’s most populous counties (DeKalb, Cobb and Gwinnett), it’s currently illegal for two unmarried couples (or four nonrelated roommates) to occupy a home together. This violation may be ignored in many cases while heavily enforced in others, but these zoning laws around unrelated persons remain a vestige of discriminatory zoning and land-use policies dating back to 1917 that are still with us today. For anyone who hasn’t read Color of Law to trace this history on a national level, it’s worthwhile reading.
As it stands now, just in metro Atlanta alone, there are 83 jurisdictions, each with differing definitions of “family” for zoning purposes. Unfortunately, the Golden Girls would have been evicted for too many unrelated occupants in 82 of these jurisdictions.
This is a rectifiable problem, and one that many cities, states and municipalities are exploring.
Shared Housing
One solution is simple one: to mirror HUD’s definition of “family” and create consistency. Concerned about too many people crammed in a home? Good news: That’s already regulated by building codes across the country.
Shared housing reduces energy consumption inside homes and conserves resources otherwise needed to build new construction. It reduces traffic in and around our cities by providing housing choices for workers closer to their employment. It reduces the burden on governments and taxpayers to fund new affordable housing, or new public infrastructure required to build further from existing networks. It creates additional savings for the workers who need housing, as well as potential new income for the housing providers who have it.
These advantages are some of the reasons we, with the Atlanta Regional Commission, HUD, the Urban Land Institute and other housing advocates across the country, have recommended shared housing as an important component of a viable housing creation strategy. Home-sharing, done informally with roommates, couch-surfing or more prescriptively through professionalized co-living, has played a vital role in housing both in our country and abroad for centuries.
These options continue to exist because they have to. The law of supply and demand is simply inescapable. The only remaining question is how long before we admit it.