Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, housing costs were rising, and stock failed to keep up with demand. With additional challenges created by the pandemic, what can states do to help stabilize living conditions and combat homelessness?
During a Saturday session of the 2021 CSG National Conference, David Garcia, policy director at the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation, explored challenges that predated COVID, how the pandemic worsened those issues and what lessons states can learn.
Before the pandemic, housing costs were rising relative to income, and 23 states saw a deficit of 7.3 million needed housing units from 2000 to 2015, Garcia said. States where housing it the most expensive and underproduced also led the way in homelessness. Garcia noted that California makes up 12% of the U.S. population but has about 50% of the nation’s homeless people.
Rent payments remained mostly stable throughout the pandemic, but Garcia said a deeper look at the data reveals disproportionate hardships. More Black, Latino and Asian households reported being behind on rent or mortgage payments, and tenants of all races have gone into debt to continue making payments.
“We have witnessed that the amount of tenants using credit cards to pay for the rent has risen significantly,” Garcia said. “This is concerning, because they are trading one form of debt for another.”
Landlords’ balances have rebounded, but smaller landlords faced higher missed rent payments, and to stay profitable, some landlords have cut back on maintenance and rent forgiveness.
Garcia said states should pay attention to the difference that rental assistance made for people struggling to make their rent and mortgage payments.
“Giving people money to stay housed — it really works,” he said. “We experienced, 15 years ago in the Great Recession, that we didn’t do anything for millions of people who were underwater on their mortgages, and we know now that that was catastrophic, not just for the housing industry, but for the economy in general.”
About 500 emergency rental assistance programs now exist throughout the country, Garcia said, but more work needs to be done in streamlining the processes for people who need help.
“One of the lessons we need to learn is that because we have so many programs and the guidance is broad, there’s a patchwork of these programs and they’re not as effective as they could be,” he said.
One issue states can look at to improve housing availability is repurposing land. Many retail sectors were already struggling before the pandemic, Garcia said, and the growth of e-commerce has continued to change the landscape.
“There’s a big opportunity to change land use patterns to accommodate the housing we need in a lot of areas,” he said. “There are a lot of land that may never be viable again for retail or office that could be repurposed for housing of all types.”
During a panel discussion that followed Garcia’s presentation, Utah state Sen. Jacob Anderegg said that, due to inflation, Utah experienced a 23% increase in housing costs in the last year alone and saw 23,000 new residents move to Utah.
“Those who are 30% or lower of area median income are one life event away from becoming homeless,” he said. “We’ve spent close to $200 million for a population of 3.2 million on homelessness at 20 to 1 of what we could have spent on intervention to keep people in their homes. I can spend $1 over here and help someone stay housed, or I can spend 20 to 1 over here to give them emergency shelter. I’m telling you, this is not a Democrat or a Republican issue. This is a ‘Duh, that makes sense’ issue.”
Lauren Lowery, director of housing and community development for the National League of Cities, said COVID exacerbated crises already apparent in eviction, affordability and availability, and states should take steps to address what was already wrong.
“We need to be protecting our renters,” she said. “We need to be centering lived experience. Policy does not exist in a vacuum. We need to be centering racial equity as well.”
Alissa Keny-Guyer, a former Oregon state representative and an advocate for children and housing issues, described the importance of land use policies. One strategy Oregon used was chipping away at the prevalence of single-family zoning to allow for more kinds of housing, like townhomes and quadruplexes, that fall between single family units and large multi-family apartments.
“We need density,” she said. “We need to be able to ensure that people have walkable neighborhoods and not have all this sprawl. […] There’s no one answer. There are more and more people on the streets, homeless; more people who can’t afford to buy a home in Oregon.”