'The greed market': Affordable housing in York County severely lacking
By: Tina Locurto (York Dispatch)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Tina LocurtoYork Dispatch
For the last year and a half, Christina Thompson and her two children have been sleeping on the couch at her aunt's home in Red Lion.
"I feel like I'm failing as a mother," Thompson said. "My kids don't have a place to call home."
And it's not for a lack of trying.
Since she left her previous home, due to what she described as a toxic situation, Thompson has actively sought a place of her own. But, like many others in York County, she's faced a grim reality: She's priced out of most of the available options.
Experts say there's simply not enough affordable housing available in York County.
"When you see rent prices that are going up to $1,900 a month and the majority of the city is under poverty — there's a mismatch on a whole other level," said Joyce Santiago, executive director of Affordable Housing Advocates, a local nonprofit that helps connect low-income residents with housing.
New development projects in York County raised the eyebrows of some who question the affordability of those rentals.
The billion dollar Freedom Square project in Conewago Township, for example, is estimated to start at $800 per month for senior rental apartments, $1,350 per month for rental townhouses and $950 per month for garden apartment rentals.
There is also an estimated $200,000 price tag for "active-adult" houses and a $225,000 estimate for single-family homes.
"Is this what 'affordable' housing looks like now?" Kassie Jarman asked in a Facebook comment discussing the project.
Despite the flak, Santiago said she's hesitant to criticize those developments.
"I don't want to knock the housing that's being created because not everybody's struggling as much as others," she said. "If you're working, you're making whatever kind of income — you have that right to go live wherever you want to live."
The part concerning her, primarily, is the lack of housing for residents below the threshold to afford such rentals. And while some tax credit housing is in the works, it still might take a couple of years before it's developed and finished, Santiago said.
A new construction project to renovate three public housing communities in York City, for instance, is expected to start in early 2023 and take 14 months to finish, according to the York Housing Authority.
Beyond new builds, existing rentals and the landlords overseeing them have hiked rent prices and other fees, according to Lori Leister, who oversees the NextDoor Program for Bell Socialization Services.
"Rent prices are going up, some at a rapid pace," Leister said. "Some landlords are wanting double security deposits — which is pretty common — but sometimes also trying to get a third security deposit or some sort of agreement paying up to 12 months of rent."
Beyond rentals, the housing market and mortgage rates have seen steep increases, according to The Associated Press. Mortgage rates saw their biggest one-week jump — from 5.23% to 5.78%, the highest they have been since November 2008, during the housing crisis.
Those increases are reflected on the local level, as well.
Elle Hale, the president of the Realtors Association of York and Adams Counties, said Realtors are primarily concerned with housing affordability.
"As interest rates have risen over 5% and home sale prices continuing to escalate, our concern is housing affordability," Hale said. "If they were looking to buy a $250,000 house at 4% for now, they may have to buy a $200,000 house at 5% to make the payment feasible."
Since becoming homeless, Thompson said, she has applied to roughly 20 different rentals. She emphasized that she was required to pay application fees just for applying — but did not receive a refund when denied the rental.
"I would call the current state of housing the greed market," Thompson said. "We have cried a lot this past year. We just so badly need a break — someone to give us a chance. We're good people that just want a place to call home."
Thompson, with a 15-year-old daughter and 7-year-old autistic, high-energy son, said it's difficult living in someone else's home with a child who has high-functional needs.
In Pennsylvania, there is a shortage of about 267,000 rental homes available to low income renters, according to data provided by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).
This data, generated by the NLIHC in 2020, further states that 27% of Pennsylvania households are classified as renters with low incomes.
In order to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the current federal fair market rate, these families would have to make nearly $41,500 per year, the NLIHC reported. York City's median household income is $36,320, according to U.S. Census data.
"Many of these households are severely cost burdened, spending more than half of their income on housing," an NLIHC report reads. "Severely cost burdened poor households are more likely than other renters to sacrifice other necessities like healthy food and health care to pay the rent, and to experience unstable housing situations like evictions."
When it comes to affordable housing, both Santiago and Leister agreed that harmful rhetoric or stereotyping is associated with it.
"It's that assumption that if you're of lower income, you're bringing crime or you're going to bring down the neighborhood value — and that is so untrue," Santiago said. "Low income people are not criminals. Just because we've only got a little bit of money doesn't mean you're going to commit a crime."
With a lack of affordable housing also comes a big caveat: defining what exactly constitutes affordability in the market.
If one can afford to pay the rent, it is affordable, Santiago said.
Using York City as an example, Santiago defined affordable housing based on income guidelines.
"The last I checked, we were somewhere around 80% poverty," she said. "So if you're using the poverty guidelines that the United States Department of Health and Human Services puts out, most of folks in York can't afford the rents that are being tacked on to the property, so therefore it's unaffordable."
When it came to receiving help from organizations, Thompson said she has not received the help she sought.
She has been accepted on several wait lists for housing programs but has not received any phone calls.
"All I want is for my kids to have a place that is ours," Thompson said. "Where they can lay their heads down each night knowing they're safe and secure."
— Reach Tina Locurto at tlocurto@yorkdispatch.com or on Twitter at @tina_locurto.
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York County is in southeast Pennsylvania.
No one seems to care about affordable housing. The United States is the wealthiest country in world history, and we cant figure out how to provide affordable housing to the lower class?
Housing in New York County is worse.
Housing in America is unaffordable by design. The entire problem is that housing is a vehicle to build generational wealth. Housing is expected to increase in value at a rate faster than the mortgage payments and that expectation is fulfilled through a perpetual housing supply shortage. People sneer at conspiracy theories but when you get down to it the American economy is one vast conspiracy.
Conspiracies against the laity
Who's going to pay for it?
you
"Who's going to pay for it?"
I don't want to pay for it
That will not have any effect
Yes. Yes it is.
Should all the poor people live with their cousins or their aunts and uncles ?
Poop maps are very helpful to keep your shoes clean.
Are we really worried about poor people buying houses? What happened to renting?
Vulture capitalists bought up all the one family homes after the 2008 housing crash. Some of them simply sit empty as a place for hedge funds to park their money.
As much as I dislike the Democratic Party talking point that inflation is due to "corporate greed" there is a recurring pattern right now of profiteering in an economic environment of shortages.
Except the ones owned by 65.5% of American families.
People who know how to profit will profit, whether the economy is up or down. The difference is that people who don't know how can only profit when the economy is up and the rising tide raises all the boats.
Again, this proves we need to address the problem of overpopulation