'Do We Really Want To Add Housing Attainability Solutions?'

Recently I read a LinkedIn post from Peter LiFiari, one of the great housing advocates and affordable housing developers in our business. Peter asks an extraordinarily important series of questions:

• What if folks don’t truly want affordable housing?
• What if people desire exclusivity over affordability?
• What if housing is seen as a meritocracy — a reflection of ambition and success, not a basic need?
• What if opposition to reforms exposes a preference for privilege over affordability?
• What if we’ve been telling ourselves what we want to believe, instead of listening to what the public is really saying?
• What if the housing we have is the housing we truly want — regardless of the cost and societal outcomes?
• What do you believe?

Many of us do not want the answers to these questions to be true. Still, we believe, based on our experience, it is. 

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is,”  Yogi Berra said.

People say they are generally favorable to housing, or sympathetic to those who are struggling (theory), but their actions say they are not (practice).

You might fairly ask, what difference does it make? Those of us in the business, or who advocate for housing, will continue to do our best. Further, everything we get done is a positive. This is true. But believing (or not questioning) whether real support for increasing housing supply exists carries with it the danger we do not have essential conversations. This belief can allow things to get much worse. 

All the while, we tell ourselves we are doing our part.

A couple of years ago, while serving on the planning commission for a resort-oriented county with a severe workforce housing problem, the commissioners received presentations from several governmental agencies on initiatives to bring new businesses to the area. I asked a series of questions:

• Has anyone added up how many people would be brought to the area if these efforts were successful?
• Aren't most of these jobs not going to be filled by locals, but by people moving here? The people moving here will outbid the locals for housing, won't they?
• If we cannot commit to enough housing for those already here, and then even more for the newcomers, won't things get worse for the locals?

It is impossible to adequately describe the negative response these questions engendered. How dare I argue against higher-paying jobs? But the problem is, none of them had even asked these questions. Let alone have a plan for how to deal with them. Each group felt they were doing good for the community, and the aggregate follow-on effects that are easy to predict were not their responsibility.  But whose?

And we are doing this around the country. There are huge incentives to get companies to relocate, but no incentives (but lots of disincentives) for where those jobs sleep at night. And no regard for the reality that when we do this, it is those on the bottom already suffering from housing insecurity who bear the incremental pain.

While I believe growth is good, and stagnation or very low growth is difficult to manage (and potentially impossible for stabilizing government entitlement programs), that is a choice.  All decisions have trade-offs, and reasonable people can disagree on how the pros and cons weigh against one another.

It is an internally consistent position if you are for low job and housing growth.  However, being for increased job growth but constraining housing is de facto saying,

I’m for rising house prices and don’t care how it impacts newcomers or those less fortunate.”

Solving housing is not complicated, but it is not easy. 

And communicating the magnitude of the problem is scary and potentially fraught. There is an argument that if the public truly understood what it would take to fix it, they might tune out and say, “we’re not doing that.” 

But one thing is guaranteed. If we do not communicate it, here's what happens: In a few years, the public will see our efforts make little impact and no longer trust us on this topic. That would end all efforts for change.

I have written extensively on the various factors decreasing affordability – excessive local control, how infrastructure is financed, density restrictions, etc.  The list is long. I will not belabor the points here again. But if we are going to continue to pin all our hopes on the fashionable solutions to the housing shortage – TOD, high density, ADUs (but not subdividable by-right), etc. – our public officials should come clean with their constituents and admit that these solutions are either ultra-high end (high rise condos) or for-rent. 

And these solutions, combined with tarring all suburban development as sprawl (regardless of density), mean the truth is, single-family homes will become a luxury good that few can afford.

I want the answers to Peter’s great questions to be NO – Our country really does want abundant housing. But I fear the answer is YES – People really do not.

You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” - Carl Jung

If our fellow citizens really do not want more attainable access to housing, then I have to ask myself: Am I the one sticking my head in the sand and not contributing to a more reasonable discussion? 

I hope not, but I wonder.