I followed a link from Atrios to this page, discussing Philadelphias affordable housing problem, which i think kinda strikes home for much of Durham. Links below in the comments. Heres the takeaway: In 2012, for every 100 extremely low-income renter households in Philadelphia there were only 37 available affordable rentals units, according to the nonpartisan Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. In total, there were 43,700 affordable and available rental units for 117,578 extremely low-income renter households in Philadelphia. Clearly this is a huge problem. But it isn’t really a housing problem — it’s an income problem. The housing itself is quite cheap here compared to most of Philadelphia’s peer cities. The real issue is the 28.4 percent poverty rate, one of the highest in the nation. Cheap as the housing is in absolute terms, a sizable segment of the population still doesn’t earn enough money to afford it. ==================== Theres a link in the report to a tool which gives median housing prices (in rental dollars/square foot, and as a % of median income) in each census tract. And while the blogger is talking exclusively about Philadelphia, i thought id poke around on the Kwelia site and see what it said about Durham. For instance, census tract 11 comes in at a median rental price of .92/square foot, or somewhere in the neighborhood of $630/month for a one bedroom. Unaffordable for most of the folks in that tract at 42.5% of the median income of $18,800/year. In adjacent tract 22, rents are about 70% higher at $1.57/square foot (or about $1100/month for a one bedroom), but with a median income of a little over $46,000/year, the ratio of rent/income is only 21% of the median. Rents of 30% or less of the median are generally considered affordable. It may not be quite so cut and dried, but i suspect that, as the blogger notes about Philly, Durham has an income problem more than a housing affordability problem.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 18:19:48 +0000
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