Absurd Affordable Housing Market!

I am NOT picking on Porchlight! Seriously. But check this out – this is the “affordable housing” market we are working with . . .

We are allowing the family waiting list to be open for two weeks starting tomorrow through October 23 for a three bedroom unit (a minimum of 1 adult and two children) that must make $1650 per month.

First of all, opening a list for two weeks for one apartment! I wonder how you calculate the chances on that. As an agency, do you even bother telling anyone about it and get their hopes up just to be crushed?

You have to make $1650 per month.
– W-2 recipients get $653 per month, they don’t qualify.
– A single minimum wage worker makes $1,343.33, they don’t qualify.
– A person on SSI or SSDI likely won’t qualify

A person needs to make at least $9.52 to qualify for that apartment. It’s for a person making $16,119.96 – which is below 30% AMI.

I know this sounds affordable to you there sitting in the coffee shop, reading this on your laptop, listening to your ipod and sipping your $4 coffee, while your kids are in day care and you think about plans to go out for dinner and drinks tonight . . . but could the person who served you that coffee or sold you that ipod afford that apartment? That leaves out most entry level restaurant workers like dishwashers, line cooks, prep cooks etc. At least from the wages I’ve been looking at recently in helping people apply for hundreds of jobs in our community.

This isn’t Porchlight’s fault. It is the funders that set the affordability levels and fund the agencies. It’s the failure to understand the realities of what people are facing. Where does a woman (or man) on W-2 live? Minimum wage workers? Even the folks lucky enough to get this apartment, will they be able to survive even in affordable housing?

The system is broken. Austerity sucks.