Workforce housing *is* affordable housing
In the last decade, the term workforce housing has not only arrived in the lexicon, it has become a politician’s preoccupation in both the UK (where it is more commonly called ‘key worker’ housing) and in the
They’re all essential
Communities are coming to understand that not only does affordable housing make communities healthy demographically, but also practically, as demonstrated by this recent New York Times article:
BEDFORD, N.Y., April 4 —This town in
The phenomenon is not confined to any single town: localities are competing to offer affordable housing:
Clarkstown, in
Why the sudden beneficence? Because otherwise the ‘first responders’ (as they are known) won’t move to your town, and you need them like a body needs white blood cells.
Each white blood cell protects many red blood cells.
Shelter Island, the genteel summer colony on
The reason is obvious: rising home prices widen the gap between owns and own-nots:
For two decades, as the suburbs have become more pricy, the number of people who can afford to live in the wealthiest communities and also volunteer or hold public jobs there has dwindled. But now, in the wake of the recent real estate frenzy, more local officials are raising disturbing questions and looking for ways to address a growing problem:
Will their communities be able to field enough firefighters to save their homes from burning down, ambulance workers to get them to a hospital in time and teachers to give their children a literate start in life?
And they’ll need newer equipment, too.
The need for affordable housing is strongly correlated with urban environments:
The problem is not strictly local. All around the country, high-priced communities are taking measures to shore up municipal work forces that can no longer afford to live within their borders. But the problem is particularly acute when it comes to volunteers like firefighters and ambulance crews, for whom proximity matters.
This is both a practical reality and a political hook. It’s much easier to sell the voters on the value of underwriting housing cost if ‘those people’ aren’t merely Dunkin’ Donuts consumers, but the ‘first responders’ who save us:
The ranks of emergency responders are typically filled by blue-collar workers, not the business executives or professionals who can afford the million-dollar homes that are now as common as the luxury sport utility vehicles in the region’s suburbs.
“All these people have heart attacks, strokes and fires at the same rate as everybody else, but they don’t volunteer at the same rate,” said Jay Leon, the mayor of Ardsley.
He, like others, said he saw housing the municipal workforce as the looming challenge for suburbia in coming decades — so much so that some officials are now referring to so-called affordable housing in the suburbs as workforce housing.
Because housing demand is elastic, it has powerful ripple effects on household formation and economic development. Affordability influences where we work, and what profession we choose:
The number of volunteer firefighters in the nation has declined from 897,750 in 1984 to 800,050 in 2003, a 10% drop, according to figures on the National Volunteer Fire Council Web site. While the slide is usually attributed to the increase in two-career families who just do not have the time to volunteer, the soaring cost of housing is a mounting factor.
“There are parts of the country, particularly the two coasts, where the price of housing has so outstripped any income gains that moderate wage earners find it difficult to find a decent home in the community where they work,” said Nicolas Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard and a former assistant federal secretary for housing.
There’s an obvious link between housing and commuting — and then a not-so-obvious secondary ecosystemic effect:
Things influence other things.
While a true crisis may be years off, the impact is already being felt. School districts in southern
Because property value is a residual (a direct function of householder buying power), simply giving people raises is not always best; often the right move is to create affordable supply, with inclusionary zoning or direct production:
The solution for attracting blue-collar workers and even relatively highly paid teachers is to build moderate-priced housing, but such a remedy is fraught with conflicts over zoning, environmental impact, money and sometimes race.
There’s a reason the vicar always got a residence: parishes seldom paid enough.
This costs money, which localities are often reluctant to spend:
So in places like
The towns are trying with a mixture of looser rules and new homes:
The effort is noble; the output, scant.
“Hey, at least we’re getting something done!”
But Mr. Devey cautioned that it might be difficult to meet the county’s request for 368 units affordable for its workforce because zoning requires most homes to be built on four-acre lots [NIMBYism’s boomerang effect! — Ed.] and large swaths of the town are in the
But when the town purchased a 10-acre parcel to build a water storage tank and offered
The house is for a volunteer firefighter — yet to be picked — and the whole community has pitched in, as if there were a barn-raising. The Rev. Paul Alcorn of Bedford Presbyterian Church and more than 300 volunteers are spending weekends replacing shingles and hammering wood planks for a porch. Electricians and plumbers have also pitched in, with Habitat for Humanity providing leadership and expertise.
Ivy Barbier, left, Ryan Walters and Jeni Leidel renovating a house in
The picture above is remarkable not just for the financial commitment, but the personal one as well: volunteer labor helping move in a firefighter.
“When you’ve had 300 people work on the house,” Mr. Alcorn said, “then you have more people thinking about affordable housing and that our firemen can’t live in this community anymore.”
Whatever it takes to get people thinking ….
