With the current economic recession wrecking havoc and limiting access to services, the challenges of finding affordable housing in Charlottesville have become anything but easier, several Charlottesville residents said. Increased unemployment and homelessness rates have residents urging city officials to step up to the plate, and many of those officials are now seeking more and better solutions to what some believe to be one of the most important issues facing the city today.
Considering Affordable Housing
A housing price is considered affordable when 30 percent of one’s income or less goes toward housing costs minus utilities, said Melissa Celii, grants coordinator and housing planner of Charlottesville.
Celii explained that residents considered for affordable housing are those with a low income at 80 percent of the area median income. For example, if the area median income was $10,000, a low income would be considered at $8000 or less. A very low income, Celii said, is 50 percent or less AMI, and an extremely low income is 30 percent or less AMI.
Currently, the cost of rent for a four-person residence for a family with an income at 80 percent of the AMI is $1370, Celii said. The cost is $855 for a family with 50 percent of the AMI and $510 for a family at 30 percent of the AMI, she said. As for housing for one or two people per residence, someone who earns 80 percent of the AMI might be expected to pay $1000, whereas someone who earns 50 percent of the AMI might be expected to pay $685. Someone who earns 30 percent of the AMI would pay $410, Celii said.
Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris said the City offers two alternatives to affordable housing for low-income families. One option is Section 8 housing, in which the city provides 400 rental vouchers to act as portable subsidies that a family can present to rent an apartment in the city, Norris said.
The other option, Norris said, is public housing. The city has 376 public housing units spread through seven different public housing neighborhoods. Public housing is considered subsidized low-cost housing, Norris said.
“It is not free housing by any means,” he said. “You have to pay rent but it is affordable.”
Residents’ take on affordable housing
Veronica Wilson, an Albemarle County resident who works in Charlottesville, addressed City Council during its meeting this past Monday about her struggles finding affordable housing.
As a single mother with three children who has held the same job for 20 years, Wilson said she made just five dollars too much to qualify for Section 8 housing and was forced to find a home outside of Charlottesville.
At one point she was living in a three-bedroom townhome when her children decided they wished to live with their father. Afterwards, Wilson said, she was left with the $825 rent to pay as well as child support. After that, her landlord told her he wanted to increase her rent to $1200, which led her to have a yard sale at which she sold everything she could. She soon moved in to her parents’ home, and then moved between the homes of friends and other families, even staying at a local church some nights.
Wilson’s difficulties finding a home included not just the need for an affordable home but also one that was livable, she said. Eventually, Wilson said, she was able to find a house with the help of a friend. She noted, however, that the building had been the site of a recent drug bust and had not been cleaned in two years. Wilson said she found that the floors in the bathroom were in such poor condition that she could see through to the basement. Despite these conditions, Wilson said, she decided to move into the house.
Now, Wilson said, she is back at her parent’s house in Albemarle County, helping take care of her mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
As for affordable housing in light of the current economy, Wilson said she does not think that those living in affordable housing are doing any worse than they were before the downturn.
“We live at a different level than other people,” Wilson said, noting that she has always lived from paycheck to paycheck. “So, economically with everything going on it doesn’t bother me any because this is how I’ve always lived.”
She said she thinks, however, that those who were struggling before and have recently lost their jobs are now worse off.
While she has not seen the price of affordable housing change, Wilson said she does believe there may be extra pressure on affordable housing residents as a result of the recession.
“Just hearing other people talk, I think everyone is feeling the pinch,” Wilson said.
Wilson said she hopes the city will pay more attention to the affordable housing situation. She noted that “we can do this but we can’t do the other four or five things,” citing an attempt to re-brick the Downtown Mall as one project possibly deterring Council’s focus on improving affordable housing.
She suggested that the city create more affordable units and houses for those who are looking to buy. Wilson added that she hopes to see the creation of a position within the local government focused on helping those in need find a place to live and guide them through the buying process.
“You may have a family that makes a good amount of money but doesn’t know how to read a credit report,” Wilson said of the difficulties involved in the housing search.
Another Perspective
Charlottesville Resident Joy Johnson, though, had a different outlook about the affordable housing situation in Charlottesville. In today’s economy, Johnson said she believes it has become even tougher to find and keep housing.
“It is two or three times as hard as it was five years ago,” she said.
Johnson noted that rental and home ownership prices have increased since 1998.
“We can’t afford affordable housing,” she said, noting that the only way for those now living in affordable housing to deal with the current economic pressures is to work with what they have. She said she does not believe Charlottesville has yet experienced the worst of this recession, adding that she believes the city will see an increase in the number of people living in shelters, being evicted and having their utilities shut off.
Johnson said she believes the problems that arise from living in affordable housing are largely a result of poor city planning.
“The planning never includes the low or extremely low-income people,” Johnson said. “It always counts the middle- and upper-income and retirement folks.”
Johnson noted that those in need of affordable housing are unable to rent the properties of many developers because they are unable to afford the luxuries that have become commonplace in newer developments. She attributed these newer and less affordable housing properties to the city’s efforts to gentrify the neighborhoods.
“It is those planning what the area will look like in the next 10 years and the lower class is not included in that plan,” Johnson said.
Another reason finding affordable housing is difficult, Johnson said, is the student population in the city. Students are taking up a majority of the housing in Charlottesville, she noted.
“You can get a lot of students in one apartment and they can pay it,” Johnson said.
University Off-Grounds Housing Manager Vicki Hawes, however, said the housing that University students predominantly live in has been rezoned as “university high density” for students.
“I don’t think it affects affordable housing available for the general population of Charlottesville,” Hawes said of the student presence in the city.
Norris said he recognized that much of off-Grounds housing is designed for students, noting, however, that he does not believe that the presence of such residences contribute to the city’s perceived lack of affordable housing.
“The difficulty comes when you have private rental housing that might not be student housing directly,” Norris said.
The changes Johnson hopes to see in affordable housing include a greater focus on helping those with very low and extremely low incomes, as well as conducting talks between the city and county about how officials will address homelessness and affordable housing in general, she said.
She cited the city’s and County’s task force study on affordable housing in the area as a much-needed measure that she hopes will reveal the need for help among the city’s lower class and prompt the city and county into action.
Johnson said she worries, however, that the study will not be enough to generate a relief effort for those who are living in affordable housing or are homeless.
“You have the working poor who can’t find housing,” Johnson said. “I think most people have the idea that the most people who need affordable housing don’t have jobs or are involved in drugs.”
Despite this concern, Johnson said she believes that once the city and county decide how to solve the problems of affordable housing, officials will be able to see who has been left out during city planning in the past.
“Draw it out on a map and see what it looks like because I think you will be able to see who’s left out,” Johnson said.
The city’s role in affordable housing
Norris said the city views the affordable housing problem in the current economic climate as a good news-bad news situation. He noted, on the one hand, that because the housing market has softened, middle-income families are now able to afford to buy or sell their homes.
“So, that’s good but it doesn’t mean that house prices have come back down to the point where a substantial number of lower income residents can find housing that is in their price range,” Norris said. “So we still have a lot of work to do on making sure that all of our residents have access to quality affordable housing.”
The troubling economy, however, has led to an unemployment increase in Charlottesville, which in turn has led to an increase in the number of homeless residents, Norris said.
The availability of affordable housing for those who need it, he said, is not sufficient to fill the demand and neither is the availability of Section 8 or public housing. He added that there is a long waitlist for both Section 8 and public housing.
“When you look at the rental market in terms of affordable rental housing, [it] indicates that the supply is insufficient to meet the demand when you have hundreds of families on the waiting list for housing,” Norris said.
The city also has a number of initiatives that it plans to pursue in the coming months to improve affordable housing conditions and availability, Norris said.
One project the city started involves working with private developers to incentivize developers to include a certain percentage of affordable units in new developments, Norris said.
“That has been a very productive process,” Norris said. “We should start seeing real fruit in the year ahead in terms of seeing homes for low income families.”
Norris said the city also plans to make allocations in April or May for the Charlottesville Housing Fund. He said the city had never put more than $400,000 into the fund in the past but has decided to increase this year’s housing budget to $1.4 million. Different portions of the budget will be made available to different non-profit groups who intend to use the funds to build new housing units, Norris said.
The City is also actively involved in the housing task force discussions with Albemarle County and the University, Norris said. Officials are currently in the process of creating a permanent source of funding to be extracted from their budgets for affordable housing, Norris said.
“Every year we [will] know there is a certain amount of money that will be set aside that we can rely on that won’t be subject to the whims of whatever elected official [holds power] at that time,” Norris said.
The city is also pursuing a proposal to create a renters’ assistance program for those living in affordable housing.
Along with an increased budget and new programs to help those in need of affordable housing, the City and the housing task force has recommended that the University create more on-Grounds housing for students, Norris said, noting that he hopes that by increasing the amount of on-Grounds housing, the University will relieve pressure on the housing market in Charlottesville.
Other affordable housing initiatives
Many other groups in the city are working to aid those who live or need affordable housing in Charlottesville.
One such group, the Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together, attended the City Council meeting last Monday to propose an effort to help provide housing to residents who earn $20,000 a year or less.
Reverend Tom Leland of the University Baptist Church, which is a member of IMPACT, asked Council to consider a program involving private and public funds that would be used for housing for people such as teachers’ aids, custodians, maids and “other service personnel whom we very much need and depend on.”
Another organization available to those living in or in need of affordable housing is Habitat for Humanity. Lynne Conboy, chair of Charlottesville’s Habitat for Humanity office, said the organization offers interest-free mortgages to families who fall in a certain percentage of area income. In return, the families participate in “sweat equity” in which they help work on homes alongside other members of Habitat for Humanity, Conboy said.
The University also has a chapter of Habitat for Humanity in which students build several housing units during the year, Conboy said.
The current economic conditions have made it more difficult for people to pay their rent, Conboy said, adding that she, too, has seen an increase in the need for affordable housing.
“They get desperate and live in desperate situations,” Conboy said of those in need of affordable housing.
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