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City Council to address affordable housing costs

VHA report suggests reasonable housing out of reach for many renters

<p>Based on analysis of fair market rent, the VHA report&nbsp;claims that&nbsp;modest apartments are out of reach for low&nbsp;wage-earners, and that there is an overall&nbsp;lack of affordable housing for many renters.</p>

Based on analysis of fair market rent, the VHA report claims that modest apartments are out of reach for low wage-earners, and that there is an overall lack of affordable housing for many renters.

In coming weeks, the Charlottesville City Council will take up proposals to increase the availability of affordable housing, according to City Council Member Kristin Szakos.

The measures have been drafted by the Council’s Housing Advisory Committee — with input from Robert Charles Lesser & Co., a group of real estate experts who were commissioned by the City to conduct a survey on housing prices last year.

Szakos said she believes affordable housing is an issue in Charlottesville, and that the City and local employers should address the problem by first establishing a higher minimum wage.

“Nationally and locally I think we need to really be pushing for wage increases, especially at the bottom,” Szakos said.

A separate report released early this month by the Virginia Housing Authority and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, or NLIHC, also brought attention to the issue of affordable housing. The report claims that modest apartments are out of reach for average wage-earners.

Virginia has the highest housing wage of any state in the southeast, according to the VHA report. A family would need to earn over $46,000 per year in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the established fair market rent.

Market rent is a number set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development on a regional basis. For families with one breadwinner working full-time, that equates to a wage of $22.44 per hour, more than triple the federal and state minimum wage of $7.25.

Szakos said she was not surprised by the details of the report.

“We’ve had several reports in past years that have shown very similar things and we’re very aware of it,” Szakos said.

Szakos said she attributes the difficulties people face in finding housing to a combination of factors, including the limited area of the City and the large number of low-wage workers employed by the University and University-affiliated contractors.

Housing for University students is also a factor which limits affordable housing, Szakos said.

“The University doesn’t provide housing for a lot of its students, and so they’re looking for housing in the community, and often their parents are paying for it, and so therefore the market will bear higher rents than the community would bear without the University,” Szakos said.

Chief Operating Officer Karen Reifenberger of the Piedmont Housing Alliance -— a financial counseling organization affiliated with VHA -— said the recent report underscores the need for initiatives promoting affordable housing from both the local and federal level.

Szakos said she agrees there needs to be an increase in affordable housing, though she cautions against relying solely on “Band-Aids” like housing subsidies and tax incentives for housing companies.

“Unless we deal with the issue of wages, we’re never going to be able to meaningfully deal with the issue of whether people can afford housing,” Szakos said. 

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