Regarding the July 29 front-page article “A new, unlikely face of homelessness: Workers,”:
By Letters to the Editor
When I moved into my parent’s basement apartment — a ridiculously kind offering in the thick of my life’s mess for which I will forever be grateful — I was told that I could rest, recover and relaunch. During the first few months, I had an infant and a part-time job that paid minimum wage, and I had just been through a divorce. Now, I’ve worked a full-time job for years, have paid back my credit cards and have letters of recommendation. I pay my car insurance, phone bill, groceries, diapers, entertainment — you name it, I buy it. I budget my month respectably and keep pleasure spending to a minimum. We live below our means. We are still struggling.
When I first applied for a loan, I wasn’t aware of how high interest rates were. When they told me my qualifying loan would be well below $200,000, I felt myself shatter. This would not pay for a home. Was I stuck in my parent’s basement for the next five years? Ten?
There are also one-hundred and one apartment complexes around the gym where I work, and any of them would be great options to apply for, but they all suffer from the same problem: They cost as much, if not more, than a mortgage.
My life’s desire is to give my child a home. Every day, I am grateful that she has a roof over her head, but there is still a part of me that wishes I had made more. A part of me feels like a failure — even though I have a traditional full-time job and financial independence in all other areas of my life. So, I’ll keep working. I’ll keep being grateful for my loving parents. I’ll keep saving and hoping the economy settles and housing prices come down.
For now, I’m grateful not to have a mortgage. If I did, we might not survive.
Alyssa McGuire, Athens, Ga.
The July 29 front-page article sheds much-needed light on the homelessness and housing crises in America. As the article outlines, with rent prices continuing to rise, many people working for hourly wages are unable to afford rent along with other necessities.
While rapid rehousing and addressing the immediate housing crisis are essential for providing immediate relief, long-term solutions are crucial for creating sustainable and lasting impacts in our communities. Some long-term strategies include increasing the availability of affordable housing through policies that incentivize developers to create and maintain affordable units; supporting small businesses and entrepreneurship, particularly in marginalized communities; and pushing for increased funding for affordable housing programs and social services at the local, state and federal levels.
It is essential that we continue to provide services and resources to families experiencing homelessness to rehabilitate and guide them through the housing crisis. However, it is equally important that our leaders expand our approach to addressing homelessness to provide more affordable housing and comprehensive support for those experiencing homelessness, mimicking the success of my group, Homestretch, which helps homeless families get back on their feet.
Barfonce Baldwin, Washington
The writer is the executive director of Homestretch.
Jim Parrott and Mark Zandi have praise and criticism for Vice President Kamala Harris’s housing proposal in their Aug. 26 op-ed, “Harris’s plan could solve the housing crisis,” but both writers and Ms. Harris overlook important points.
The costs of land, labor and materials have indeed risen too high for builders to make a profit on affordable housing, but one of these three is not like the others. High pay encourages people to become construction workers, and high prices for beams and plumbing fixtures encourage their production. However, high land costs do not encourage production or create jobs for landmakers.
Construction regulations and demand have all made land more expensive. Attempts to subsidize housing are likely to increase the demand for land, driving up land prices further.
We need less snob zoning and property tax reform. Let’s replace the property tax — on buildings and land — with a land-only tax. Such a tax would make land speculation unprofitable, and relief from taxes on buildings would encourage housing construction. If we are to address the lack of affordable housing effectively, we need to think outside the box.
Nicholas D. Rosen, Arlington
The writer is president of the Center for the Study of Economics.
Jim Parrott and Mark Zandi make a reasonable case for supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’s solution to the inadequate U.S. housing supply. However, as a 45-year developer of affordable rental housing, I can say their argument contains a few flaws.
First, existing tools such as the low-income housing tax credit could indeed help finance more rental housing for low-income families. But relatively few municipalities have the capacity to process these applications or ensure their successful implementation. Further, many of them have no willingness to create such capacity or fund the developments themselves.
Affordable rental housing is essential for growing a municipality’s retail and commercial tax base, and some local governments — like Loudoun and Prince William counties — have taken strong steps forward. But winning these scarce tax credits requires substantial local contributions. Putting together all the pieces of a complex capital structure just for the chance of obtaining a subsidy is difficult and expensive for developers, state agencies, local officials and investors.
The writers also mischaracterize the nature of the subsidies. They are not “tax breaks for the developers.” Low-income housing tax credits are indeed awarded to developers, but they are most often sold to investors — usually banks — to get financing and equity.
The subsidies required to incentivize affordable for-sale housing would presumably be different, as described in the column. But they probably wouldn’t work like Ms. Harris hopes. Her proposal would provide a $25,000 down payment grant for a first-time buyer. This would raise the price of homes unless the supply issue is fixed first.
Most affordable housing developers, whether for profit or nonprofit, earn their living from “developer fees” as part of the total building cost. Developers might succeed in building affordable subdivisions with capital subsidies and supplemental help from “a tax break on profits,” as described by the writers. But developers tend to see only a 10 percent profit on a sale. A tax break on those profits alone will not be enough to make the unit affordable for low- or moderate-income households. The numbers simply do not work.
The writers are right about the scale of the problem and the total cost of solving it: huge. If the United States really wants to expand and distribute the available stock of affordable housing, we will need federal resources. We’ll also need to overcome political resistance, and we’ll need the amount of expertise and local government staff these programs require. “Resources of the private sector” are essential but not even close to sufficient.
Jim Edmondson, McLean
The writer is co-founder of Wellington Development.
Ward 3 is well-positioned to prove Vice President Kamala Harris’s housing plan successful. Where better than Friendship Heights to envision robust affordable rental and home-ownership opportunities for families making less than the median household income — bus drivers, nurses’ aides, grounds keepers, teaching assistants and those working in the grocery stores along upper Wisconsin Avenue?
The most promising immediate opportunity is at the two WMATA sites: the existing garage and its future home at the former Lord and Taylor. A preliminary study by NW Opportunity Partners Community Development Corp. and Ward 3 Housing Justice suggests that, in addition to a state-of-the-art garage twice as large as the current one, developers could construct as many as 1,222 affordable apartment units and 14 affordable homeowner residences in seven townhouses.
Friendship Heights might appear to be unlikely and uncompetitive: expensive land, for-profit players who are loath to provide more than they must, and an anemic zoning framework that lacks both vision and strategy to provide housing for local workers. But this neighborhood also has phenomenal assets for success: exceptional public transportation, an organized bi-state business community and an abundance of vacant and underutilized land.
What will it take to capitalize on Ms. Harris’s plan? First, engage D.C.’s highly skilled, mission-driven affordable housing developers and community financial institutions to produce a compelling and innovative blueprint. Then, lobby to remove impediments. Next, revive the long-stalled plan for a new garage with deep community engagement. Above all, keep in mind Daniel Burnham’s advice: “Make no little plans. … Make big plans. Aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die.”
Meg Maguire, Washington
The writer is chair of the NW Opportunity Partners Community Development Corp.
