It’s a challenge to report on housing issues without seeming either:
Alarmist and shrill
Like an old man braying at the moon
Defeated and demoralized
Pollyanna-ish
The reality, of course, is somewhere in between those extremes. Steps both forward and back…but is there progress in that motion?
As I posted recently elsewhere, in my former professional life, I advised the C-suite and Boards of Fortune 100 companies, led communications for some of the world’s largest (at the time) mergers and acquisitions, and assisted dozens of companies in capital raising efforts.
None of those were as difficult or byzantine as putting together the sale of a subsidized home to a lower-income family in NY State. I am not looking to bash any agency, institution, or government official or program. It is what it is and we have to make it work.
But in all honesty, it should not be as hard as it is to build and sell subsidized affordable homes to families that need it. When “the market” does not work efficiently (or in this case, works perversely or not at all) or provide realistic solutions to structural problems, we must find other methods…without creating worse problems.
In many cases, the current housing subsidy and finance system works against grass-roots and small-scale efforts to tackle the affordability problem, especially for homeownership. Yet, for most communities, especially rural ones, that is where the solution lies: at the local level.
In NY, government policies and agencies encourage scale and favor the most impact for the most people, and lean towards larger urban and rental development programs. This makes sense at one level. But the evidence of the effectiveness of large scale solutions is mixed.
For grass-roots organizations and small non-profits, identifying and then maneuvering through state funding programs takes expertise and resources that many do not have access to. It stymies innovation and results, which tend to bubble up rather than trickle down. In our county, we are the only organization that has developed affordable housing in the last number of years. That’s a sad statement. We need a mosaic of supply options.
“All the science, I don’t understand. It’s just my job five days a week.”
- Elton John, Rocket Man
On the bright side, initiatives at the county and municipal level seem to be gaining more traction, spurred in part by the NY Pro Housing Community effort, and other programs. More are in the pipeline.
The affordable housing crisis will continue. We are losing population and inequality is growing. Our actions need to accelerate and results need to match the rhetoric. New data is being released that shows this. More on that soon.
Meanwhile, we build what we can, wherever the opportunity exists.
Join us. Make a difference. We are all in this together.
