Saturday, October 17, 2015
Million Dollar Shack-trapped inside the Silicon Valley's Housing Bubble.
Check out this compelling story about the frustration to find an affordable home in the Silicon Valley by an average middle class family. Will Marin be next? I can't help but think so. Google is rumored to have purchased the old Fireman's Fund building in Novato for a satellite office. Could other tech firms be close behind?
Although this will mean the rise of our home prices, it will also price more middle class families out of the market. It seems like all we are building in Marin is luxury homes and tax subsidized homes for low income workers. The middle class has no where to go. And the moderate and middle class homeowners may be well pushed out of their homes through rising taxes for these massive subsidies to non profit developers.
$500k investment buys you citizenship in the USA.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Why Twitter’s Dying (And What You Can Learn From It)
Why Twitter’s Dying (And What You Can Learn From It)
It’s early summer, and I’m in Dupont Circle. Something’s off. People, I notice, seem to be suddenly tweeting much less lately. But I’ve got a book to finish, so I file the observation away to carefully inspect later.
It’s late summer, and I’m standing in Madison Square, frowning. Something’s wrong. Twitter feels like a deserted bar…people seem to be leaving early, too hastily, unsatisfied, rolling their eyes. Maybe, I say to myself, everyone’s just on vacation.
It’s early fall, and I’m at my favorite cafe in London. What the? Twitter’s a cemetery. Populated by ghosts. I call them the “ists”. Journalists retweeting journalists…activists retweeting activists…economists retweeting economists…once in a while a great war breaks out between this group of “ists” and that…but the thing is: no one’s listening…because everyone elseseems to have left in a hurry.
What happened to Twitter? It’s a mystery, right?
Wrong.
To understand what really happened, let’s examine what didn’t. Competition. From the new startup du jour. They are marginal contributors at best to Twitter’s sudden decline for the simple reason that people do not use them enough to attribute said decline solely to them — and the larger reason that they are not substitutes for, but complements to, micro-messages.
Twitter’s troubles are due to something deeper yet simpler, so commonplace it has become invisible. It is, in a very real sense, a victim of its own blindness.
Here’s my tiny theory, in a word. Abuse. And further, I’m going to suggest in this short essay that abuse — not making money — is the great problem tech and media have. The problem of abuse is the greatest challenge the web faces today. It is greater than censorship, regulation, or (ugh) monetization. It is a problem of staggering magnitude and epic scale, and worse still, it is expensive: it is a problem that can’t be fixed with the cheap, simple fixes beloved by tech: patching up code, pushing out updates. READ IT HERE
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Shotgun Shack Redux
Two years ago, Debra and her family lived in a nearly 2000 square foot home on an acre and a half of land. Then her husband lost his job and they began to work 4 jobs between them to pay the mortgage, until one day they remembered they had a choice.
Before having their son, Debra and her husband Gary had spent 9 years living in very tiny homes in South America. Living small hadn't felt like a sacrifice, but a way to stay focused on what is important. They decided they wanted to get back to that.
They stopped working so hard, sold or gave away all of their extra stuff and began looking for the perfect tiny home.
Debra had always liked the Mississippi shotgun style homes, and one day, while browsing craigslist, they noticed an ad for a local Arkansas company custom building tiny homes for a price that could mean an end to house payments.
Six weeks and $15,000 later they had their own fully paid-off dwelling. Today, Debra, her husband and 13-year-old son live in a 320-square foot home that is not a sacrifice, but exactly what they need.
VIDEO: Plan Bay Area is a 19th Century Solution for 21st Century Problems
Marinwood/Lucas Valley must not be destroyed for the vain ambitions of a few Smart Growth zealots.
Portland Oregon has failed to achieve its green revolution. Check out this video from the comedy show "Portlandia
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Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Free Speech under Attack at Marinwood CSD
Free Speech under Attack at Marinwood CSD
Last night, "The Revision to correspondence policy" was voted and approved by the majority of the Marinwood CSD board on October 13, 2015. Bill Hansell was the dissenting vote. The policy was suggested by our new general manager to "limit communications relevant to CSD business" He claims that letters to the CSD board have "been abused" by the public to "introduce items not relevant to the agenda and district jurisdiction" at a high cost of staff time. Tarey Read, said that it would be a "felony" to gift staff time to irrelevant topics of discussion. What is the cost of adding an email to a pdf?
Guess who gets to decide if the items are "irrelevant"? The general manager and the CSD board, of course. It is a clear violation of the First Amendment to prevent, alter or suppress communications to the government.
Bill Hansell in his dissent remarked that "more speech, not less" is a sign of a healthy local democracy. In his view, written correspondence is no different than "open time" for speakers, I agree.
All other current Marinwood CSD candidates were in the room and none objected to the policy.
Strange times in "do your own thing" California. I appreciate Bill's willingness to do the right thing.
Guess who gets to decide if the items are "irrelevant"? The general manager and the CSD board, of course. It is a clear violation of the First Amendment to prevent, alter or suppress communications to the government.
Bill Hansell in his dissent remarked that "more speech, not less" is a sign of a healthy local democracy. In his view, written correspondence is no different than "open time" for speakers, I agree.
All other current Marinwood CSD candidates were in the room and none objected to the policy.
Strange times in "do your own thing" California. I appreciate Bill's willingness to do the right thing.
=================
I believe in Free Speech. I support the First Amendment right of everyone to redress the government even if I disagree with the content. If elected to the Marinwood CSD, I will fight such anti-democratic measures like "The revision to correspondence policy" from being enacted.
I want to hear from you.
I believe in Democracy.
'They Are Coming for Our Neighborhoods'
'They Are Coming for Our Neighborhoods'
Why Boulder is taking pre-emptive measures against density, zoning changes, and affordable housing. Bad ones.
Editor's Note: This article is for discusssion only, Save Marinwood strongly supports local control. The alternative, is giving regional bureaucrats who may no nothing about the individual neighborhood, carte blanche authority to destroy neighborhoods in the name of progress. Every neighborhood from Marin City to Novato is under threat from top down governance from HUD and Plan Bay Area. We must Save Marin Again!
Come November, residents of Boulder, Colorado, will decide what kind of city they want to be. Voters there are mulling a measure that would change how local government works when it comes to zoning. Under the proposed rule, Boulder’s neighborhoods could get the opportunity to vote on any zoning change within that neighborhood before it goes into effect.
The change is subtle, but the effects will be sweeping. The ballot issue is an amendment to the city’s charter, which means it would be difficult to reconsider later. Six different Boulder mayors oppose it. The stakes are high. Supporters of the measure are up front about that.
“They are coming for our neighborhoods,” writes Jeffrey Flynn of Livable Boulder,* an advocacy campaign that supports ballot issue #300. “In Denver, they are already knocking down churches and replacing them with high-density developments in neighborhoods. Boulder is next.”
In context, “they” means developers. But in reality, “they” are people: workers, families, low-income residents, and other people who might one day like to call Boulder home. If voters affirm the Neighborhoods’ Right to Vote on Land-Use Regulation Changes amendment (ballot issue #300) on November 3, then they will be effectively freezing growth in Boulder—by turning one city into 66 new exclusionary zones with final say on housing and density.
At present, when the city council approves a zoning change, it triggers a 30-day cooling-off period during which voters can take action. If 10 percent of Boulder’s voting population sign a petition against a zoning change, then the council is required to reconsider it. The ordinance can be put up for a direct referendum. Through its elected representatives and oversight process, the city decides zoning changes for itself.
But if the proposed charter amendment passes, then the locus of the action will shift from the city to the neighborhood. The amendment serves to define 66 residential neighborhoods and invest them with petition authority. So when the council passes a zoning change that affects Chautauqua, it will only require 10 percent of the voters living in Chautauqua to successfully move a petition. And when a petition is successful and if the ordinance is put up for a vote, only voters living in Chautauqua may weigh in on the measure.
This is mega-NIMBYism at work. It essentially yields the municipal government’s authority over zoning decisions to neighborhoods acting as zoning boards—66 of them, none of which have any incentive to accommodate higher density or affordable housing. As in just about any “zoning rights” discussion, the measure’s boosters support the right for homeowners to preserve high land values in single-family home districts—and force developers and affordable-housing advocates to look elsewhere.
A complementary measure, ballot issue #301—Development Shall Pay Its Own Way—would require the city to reject any new development that does not “fully pay for or otherwise provide additional facilities and services to fully offset the additional burdens imposed by the new development.” So the cost for any future development in Boulder would be raised by some necessary fraction to preserve the quality of life as it currently exists for residents who were lucky enough to move to Boulder before November 3, 2015. Facilities and services in question include “police, fire-rescue, parks and recreation, public libraries, housing, human services, senior services, parking services, [and] transportation,” along with two impossible intangibles, “open space and mountain parks.”
To be utterly clear about it: Ballot issue #301 is an effort to ensure that the city never, ever again raises taxes on residents. With this ballot vote, electors will be deciding whether to make future residents pay for any additional services the city requires as a result of growth. Even, somehow, more mountain parks and open space.
Of course, if Boulder passes ballot issues #300 and #301, growth won’t be a question. These measures would seal the city under a dome. Inside the dome, no neighborhood would ever again elect to accept zoning for greater density and more-affordable housing. If the city as a whole opposes development, why would any particular neighborhood embrace it? The low bar to opposition (10 percent of a neighborhood’s electorate!) will unleash a cascade of costly elections any time the city nudges a neighborhood on zoning.
What happens next follows an established script. Prices for homes in Boulder will skyrocket, to the benefit of incumbent homeowners and to the massive detriment of others less fortunate—low-income renters, students at the University of Colorado, young families who’d like to make their home in Boulder, retirees on fixed incomes who can’t afford the property taxes, people forced to commute into the city for work, and so on. From outside the dome, Boulder will come to look like San Francisco, with its untenable housing crisis. (Unless employers decide to leave the dome for good.)
Jessica Yates, an attorney writing for the Daily Camera, thinks that one of the ballot issues isn’t constitutional under state law. So it’s possible that the worst won’t come to pass, even if the ballot issues do.
“Livable Boulder's neighborhood right-to-vote initiative would create two classes of Boulder citizens for any given land-use issue,” Yates writes. “Only one class would be eligible to vote on a council land-use action, leaving the vast majority of us on the sideline on any given issue, even if we live adjacent to or work in the neighborhood in question and have a direct interest in the proposed land use.”
Boulder residents, present and future, had better hope she’s right. Or better, they should think through these ballot issues. For incumbent residents, especially affluent homeowners, these measures would be a real boon. But Boulder can’t survive sealed off forever.
The change is subtle, but the effects will be sweeping. The ballot issue is an amendment to the city’s charter, which means it would be difficult to reconsider later. Six different Boulder mayors oppose it. The stakes are high. Supporters of the measure are up front about that.
“They are coming for our neighborhoods,” writes Jeffrey Flynn of Livable Boulder,* an advocacy campaign that supports ballot issue #300. “In Denver, they are already knocking down churches and replacing them with high-density developments in neighborhoods. Boulder is next.”
In context, “they” means developers. But in reality, “they” are people: workers, families, low-income residents, and other people who might one day like to call Boulder home. If voters affirm the Neighborhoods’ Right to Vote on Land-Use Regulation Changes amendment (ballot issue #300) on November 3, then they will be effectively freezing growth in Boulder—by turning one city into 66 new exclusionary zones with final say on housing and density.
At present, when the city council approves a zoning change, it triggers a 30-day cooling-off period during which voters can take action. If 10 percent of Boulder’s voting population sign a petition against a zoning change, then the council is required to reconsider it. The ordinance can be put up for a direct referendum. Through its elected representatives and oversight process, the city decides zoning changes for itself.
But if the proposed charter amendment passes, then the locus of the action will shift from the city to the neighborhood. The amendment serves to define 66 residential neighborhoods and invest them with petition authority. So when the council passes a zoning change that affects Chautauqua, it will only require 10 percent of the voters living in Chautauqua to successfully move a petition. And when a petition is successful and if the ordinance is put up for a vote, only voters living in Chautauqua may weigh in on the measure.
This is mega-NIMBYism at work. It essentially yields the municipal government’s authority over zoning decisions to neighborhoods acting as zoning boards—66 of them, none of which have any incentive to accommodate higher density or affordable housing. As in just about any “zoning rights” discussion, the measure’s boosters support the right for homeowners to preserve high land values in single-family home districts—and force developers and affordable-housing advocates to look elsewhere.
A complementary measure, ballot issue #301—Development Shall Pay Its Own Way—would require the city to reject any new development that does not “fully pay for or otherwise provide additional facilities and services to fully offset the additional burdens imposed by the new development.” So the cost for any future development in Boulder would be raised by some necessary fraction to preserve the quality of life as it currently exists for residents who were lucky enough to move to Boulder before November 3, 2015. Facilities and services in question include “police, fire-rescue, parks and recreation, public libraries, housing, human services, senior services, parking services, [and] transportation,” along with two impossible intangibles, “open space and mountain parks.”
To be utterly clear about it: Ballot issue #301 is an effort to ensure that the city never, ever again raises taxes on residents. With this ballot vote, electors will be deciding whether to make future residents pay for any additional services the city requires as a result of growth. Even, somehow, more mountain parks and open space.
Of course, if Boulder passes ballot issues #300 and #301, growth won’t be a question. These measures would seal the city under a dome. Inside the dome, no neighborhood would ever again elect to accept zoning for greater density and more-affordable housing. If the city as a whole opposes development, why would any particular neighborhood embrace it? The low bar to opposition (10 percent of a neighborhood’s electorate!) will unleash a cascade of costly elections any time the city nudges a neighborhood on zoning.
What happens next follows an established script. Prices for homes in Boulder will skyrocket, to the benefit of incumbent homeowners and to the massive detriment of others less fortunate—low-income renters, students at the University of Colorado, young families who’d like to make their home in Boulder, retirees on fixed incomes who can’t afford the property taxes, people forced to commute into the city for work, and so on. From outside the dome, Boulder will come to look like San Francisco, with its untenable housing crisis. (Unless employers decide to leave the dome for good.)
Jessica Yates, an attorney writing for the Daily Camera, thinks that one of the ballot issues isn’t constitutional under state law. So it’s possible that the worst won’t come to pass, even if the ballot issues do.
“Livable Boulder's neighborhood right-to-vote initiative would create two classes of Boulder citizens for any given land-use issue,” Yates writes. “Only one class would be eligible to vote on a council land-use action, leaving the vast majority of us on the sideline on any given issue, even if we live adjacent to or work in the neighborhood in question and have a direct interest in the proposed land use.”
Boulder residents, present and future, had better hope she’s right. Or better, they should think through these ballot issues. For incumbent residents, especially affluent homeowners, these measures would be a real boon. But Boulder can’t survive sealed off forever.
Censorship in America
Censorship in America
Free speech matters.
Support for the idea that it's good to hear all opinions, even offensive ones, is thin. A plurality of Americans now support laws against "hate speech."
Conservatives once wanted to ban Playboy magazine, violent rap lyrics and offensive depictions of Jesus. Leftists then were right to fight such bans, but today leftists encourage censorship in the name of "tolerance."
Scientist Matt Taylor helped land a probe on a comet for the first time in history. But because he explained his achievement while wearing a T-shirt that had cartoons of sexy women on it (designed by a female friend of his), writer Rose Eveleth of The Atlantictweeted that Taylor "ruined" the comet landing. The public outcry against him was so great that he cried at an apologetic press conference.
Silicon Valley entrepreneur Brendan Eich created JavaScript and helped start Mozilla Firefox. But when activists discovered that he'd once donated $1,000 to support California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage, they attacked him as "a hater." A year and a half later, Eich still can't find a job.
When Eich donated the money, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton opposed gay marriage, too. But in just five years, such opinions have become so "unacceptable" that a tech genius is ostracized by his own industry.
As long as the leftist mobs don't use law or violence, they're still engaged in free speech. Private employers can impose most any speech rule they choose. The First Amendment applies only to government. But now some government officials are as eager to censor as the leftist mobs.
After the owners of Chick-fil-A said they oppose gay marriage, the mayors of Chicago, San Francisco and Boston said Chick-fil-A is "not welcome" in their cities. San Francisco's mayor said, "The closest Chick-fil-A is 40 miles away and I strongly recommend they not try to come any closer."
Since mayors may influence permits and zoning, their threats aren't idle. And no new Chick-fil-A outlets have opened in those cities. This is a clear violation of the First Amendment, although the politicians seem oblivious to that.
Of course, much worse than today's left are those who censor through violence. Al Qaeda's magazine names people who should be killed, chirping, "A bullet a day keeps the infidel away."
Writers and artists heed the threats. CNN, NBC and The New York Times will no longer show Mohammed cartoons.
I was surprised that liberal commentators were so eager to cave in to the terrorists' threats. Chris Matthews said, "Wanting to pick a fight with Islam is insane."
Such cowardice just invites more censorship.
When the TV series South Park was censored by its own network for depicting Mohammed, a fan of the show, liberal cartoonist Molly Norris, showed her support by drawing her own cartoons of Mohammed. For doing so, she received death threats. Fearing for her safety, she went into hiding.
Columnist Mark Steyn was appalled that "Her liberal newspaper—the way they put it in announcing that she'd gone, ceased to exist, was: 'There is no more Molly.'" She hasn't been heard from in five years.
"The only way we're going to move to a real sense of freedom is if every time somebody puts a bullet in a cartoonist for drawing a cartoon of Mohammed," says Steyn, "every newspaper ... displays that picture."
Steyn argues that societies that censor create more violence by driving hate speech underground.
"You can have a society with free speech where I call you names, and you do rude drawings of me, and I say you're a hater, and we hatey-hatey-hate each other," said Steyn on my TV special, "Censorship in America," but "the alternative is the Muslim world where there's no open debate, and so there's nothing left to do but kill and bomb and shoot."
Free speech matters. If we give in to those who would shut us up, the censors will push and push until we have no freedom left. If we're going to sort out which ideas are good and which are bad, everyone must be allowed to speak.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Who Needs to Be Invited to the Affordable Housing Planning Meeting?
Who Needs to Be Invited to the Affordable Housing Planning Meeting?
September 29, 2015 By 1 Comment
Government creates language that has no meaning, yet uses it to determine policy. In housing the current buzzword is “inclusionary”. What that really means is that government will determine where you live, how you live, how much you pay, how you get to work and what shopping and recreation you can use. In the textbooks this is called totalitarianism. In government it is called “inclusionary”. Sounds nicer.“In “Inclusionary Housing: Creating and Maintaining Equitable Communities,” Jacobus uses existing research — often only available in academic journals or in consultant’s reports — to detail where city hall, real estate developers and local stakeholders have collaborated to design programs that generate affordable housing without slowing down development. The guide gives practical information to housing advocates and policymakers about economic impacts, how to build public support, and the nuts and bolts of designing an equitable inclusionary housing policy.I can not wait till the confused Guv Brown or the President decides to sue Hillsborough in Northern California, Carmel or Beverly Hills to create “inclusionary” housing. Only the middle class is forced to live in government created ghettos and housing. Shame on us for allowing this. This is where your tax dollars go—to create the master plan, of a totalitarian State. Some call it Agenda 21. I call it outrageous.
Who Needs to Be Invited to the Affordable Housing Planning Meeting?
By Alexis Stephens, Next City, 9/25/15
Inclusionary zoning is no longer the new kid on the block for cities looking for ways to address their affordable housing shortages. There are now over 500 programs in 27 states that tie a provision of housing for low- and moderate-income households to market-rate construction.
These units help to mitigate displacement of low-income residents, especially in urban areas where housing prices are skyrocketing. But how these policies have been implemented nationwide has created wildly different outcomes for localities looking to combat gentrification. Meanwhile, many people still fear that such affordable housing regulations will hamper real estate development.
“What we’ve seen is there’s been a big difference in the effectiveness of programs depending on their details,” says Rick Jacobus, the author of a new report on inclusionary housing from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. “People have to study up on it in order to do it well.”
In “Inclusionary Housing: Creating and Maintaining Equitable Communities,” Jacobus uses existing research — often only available in academic journals or in consultant’s reports — to detail where city hall, real estate developers and local stakeholders have collaborated to design programs that generate affordable housing without slowing down development. The guide gives practical information to housing advocates and policymakers about economic impacts, how to build public support, and the nuts and bolts of designing an equitable inclusionary housing policy.
A case study from California illustrates the effectiveness of real estate market analysis: When the housing market began to heat up in Salinas, California, in the early 2000s, city officials hired a consulting firm to do an economic feasibility study that evaluated how different inclusionary housing requirements might impact development projects. Most inclusionary housing programs require developers to sell or rent a percentage of new construction units to residents who earn below the area’s median income. The analysis done for Salinas looked at the impact of percentages ranging from 15 to 40 percent of new residential units. Combined with interviews with local developers, the feasibility study helped the city to conclude that an ordinance requiring 20 percent affordable units was the “sweet spot” for Salinas.
The graph below shows trends in how developer incentives have been incorporated in local programs in California.
From the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s “Inclusionary Housing: Creating and Maintaining Equitable Communities”
“We have good evidence that the more successful programs have recognized that there are real economic challenges to these kinds of requirements,” says Jacobus, “and they’ve paid attention to the local housing market conditions to make sure that their requirements are appropriate and can be accommodated in local real estate development.”
When it comes to creating equitable cities, inclusionary housing — and its advantages and disadvantages — can differ project to project. Jacobus looked at two neighboring buildings owed to San Francisco’s inclusionary program: a mostly market-rate building that has affordable apartments too, and a tower where all the units are affordable. (The latter was built as an “off-site project” to offset the development of a nearby luxury building.)
While incorporating affordable units into a market-rate building can sometimes lead to the economic integration of local households, a low-income family living in the mixed-income building described living in a place with 24-hour spa treatments and dog walking services as “awkward.” Meanwhile the off-site building has larger apartments and more units than the developer would have had to provide on-site. That’s not always the case when units are built off site, but this building benefits from being a project of the nonprofit Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation.
Last year in New York, the city’s affordable housing policies led to the so-called “poor door” controversy. A developer planned to reserve some apartments in a new building for low-income residents, but the renters would have one building entrance while market-rate-paying residents would have another.
In the Lincoln Institute report, Jacobus maintains that when it comes to inclusionary housing “with concerted effort, it is possible for communities to grow in ways that create and maintain meaningful economic diversity.” He cites one of the country’s earliest programs, enacted in 1973 in Montgomery County, Maryland. The effort has been held up as an exemplar on which other municipalities modeled their own programs.
Montgomery County, Maryland … has created more than 14,000 homes for lower-income families that are integrated into some of the area’s most expensive neighborhoods. A 2005 study found that this strategy had succeeded in promoting racial integration throughout the county. A later study found that the children living in affordable housing produced by the program were not only able to attend higher-quality schools than other children in lower-income families, but their school performance was significantly higher.
In terms of long-term sustainability of inclusionary policies, Jacobus’ research suggests periodic review is a must. For example, by 2005, only 3,000 affordable units remained in the Montgomery County program because of expired regulation. The county had to revise its hallmark legislation. Where the program lifespan was 10 years previously, affordable units are now required to remain affordable for 30 years.
The Low Income Housing Tax Credit still dwarfs inclusionary housing as a catalyst for the construction of affordable housing in the U.S., but Jacobus predicts that the latter is going to become much more prevalent. And inclusionary housing plays a very specialized role. From 2012 to 2014, 82 percent of multifamily rental units constructed in cities were in the luxury category. A well-crafted inclusionary housing policy can help ensure that if (or when) the trend persists, there continues to be space for low- and moderate-income people to live and feel welcome in cities.
“Inclusionary housing policies are not asking developers to resolve an area’s affordable housing problem,” writes Jacobus, “rather they are asking them to be responsible for the economic impacts of their development.”
Monday, October 12, 2015
The Rent Crisis Is About to Get a Lot Worse
The Rent Crisis Is About to Get a Lot Worse
Millions of households could join the ranks of those spending more than half their income on rent, Harvard study warns
How bad can rental affordability in the U.S. get? Even worse.
That's pretty bad.
The number of U.S. households that spend at least half their income on rent—the "severely cost-burdened," in the lingo of housing experts—could increase 25 percent to 14.8 million over the next decade. More than 1 million households headed by Hispanics and more than 1 million headed by the elderly could pass into those ranks. Households shouldn't spend more than 30 percent of income on housing, by the general rule of thumb.
The grim figures come from a report out today from Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable-housing nonprofit group, and Harvard’s Joint Center on Housing Studies. To reach their conclusions, the researchers considered various scenarios for wage and rent growth over the next decade.
Even in the best case posited by the report, with wages growing a full percentage point per year faster than rents, the number of severely-cost burdened households will barely fall, from 11.8 million in 2015 to 11.6 million in 2025. In the baseline scenario, where rents and wages (and inflation) increase at 2 percent each year, the researchers expect the number to reach 13.1 million.
There were 11.2 million severely burdened renter households in 2013, competing for 7.3 million units affordable to them, the report said. If rents continue to rise faster than wages, the number of households spending more than half their income on rent will rise, too. Wages grew 0.2 percent in the second quarter of this year, the slowest pacesince 1982.
“The economy alone is not going to solve this problem," said Andrew Jakabovics, senior director of research at Enterprise Community Partners, in a conference call to discuss the findings. "It brings us back to the need to expand affordable housing,”
The report didn’t break out the share of severely rent-burdened households by income, but the poorest Americans are more likely to spend at least half of their income on rent, according to a May report from the Furman Center that focused on renters in major cities. In New York and Los Angeles, among other cities, more than one-third of middle-income renters were severely rent-burdened.
New data from the Census Bureau last week showed that the percentage of U.S. households spending 30 percent of their income on housing was lower in 2014 than in any year since 2005. That's probably because of home buyers taking out new mortgages and homeowners refinancing existing loans at lower rates, housing economist Jed Kolko said. Renters don't have that option, and face an increasingly alarming future.
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