Don’t Make More Affordable Housing. Make Housing More Affordable.

As someone who spent eight months living under a freeway overpass in north Seattle, being a service provider is a responsibility I take very seriously. So when narratives about homelessness contradict my experiences on the streets, I feel obligated to look into them.

One such narrative is the widely held belief that ending homelessness requires building more affordable housing. I spent many cold nights wandering the streets with no place to go. I would frequently walk past vacant apartments and empty homes and wonder to myself, “Why can’t I stay in there?"

In an attempt to stress test this narrative, I sought out to answer a few questions. Is more housing needed in King County to end homelessness? If so, what would that cost? I also used recent US census data and current housing market values to determine how many housing units are vacant in King County, and what it would cost to provide rental subsidies at market value to everyone experiencing homelessness in King County for a full year.

Do we need to build more affordable housing to end homelessness?

According to the Regional Homelessness Authority, around 40,800 people experienced homelessness in King County at some point in 2020. A recent report from Challenge Seattle shows that the homeless rate in King County surged 42% over the last five years — despite a 21% annual increase in funding for homeless services over that period. According to the most recent census data, there are 961,473 housing units in King County. Only 908,019 are occupied, leaving over 53,000 housing units vacant.

That’s more than enough vacant places to house every resident experiencing homelessness in King County, but not affordably. The average median monthly rent per household in King County is $1,695. Within Seattle city limits, where homelessness is most prominent, the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is $2,418, and between 2014 and 2020, the annual number of available low-income units has decreased by 17%, a number that’s been steadily dropping since 1997.

Can we afford to house everyone at market rate?

The median annual cost for a market rate apartment in King County is $20,340 per household. If every person experiencing homelessness in the county was provided a rental subsidy valued at this amount, the total cost would be $829,872,000. In an effort to leave little room for misinterpretation (and in an effort to not do math) I did not account for homeless household composition, which indicates that 17% of people experiencing homelessness are families with children and 12% are youth and young adults. Doing so would significantly reduce that total.

$829 million dollars seems unaffordable until you realize that Seattle alone collectively spends more than $1 billion addressing homelessness every year, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.

Is building enough affordable housing realistic?

Building the amount of affordable housing this narrative suggests is a near-impossible task for many cities within King County. In Seattle, nearly half of all developable land is contained within single family zones. In contrast, multifamily zones where affordable housing can be built comprise just 25% of Seattle's residential areas.

The King County Department of Community and Human Service’s cost model indicates that feasibility isn't the only problem - it estimates that it will cost $20 billion to construct/preserve, operate, and service 44,000 0-50% Area Median Income (AMI) apartment units between 2019 and 2024, which they state is "likely an underestimate."

Will it Work?

Housing First is one of the only evidence-based interventions that directly addresses homelessness. The model calls for unconditional, permanent housing as quickly as possible to people experiencing homelessness. Supportive services are provided after housing is secured, rather than moving people through different “levels” of housing to assess their readiness.

Market value rental subsidies would minimize concentrations of poverty and poverty-related crime in neighborhoods. They would re-integrate people into communities that model healthy social norms rather than setting people aside in low-income housing developments. They would also provide historically marginalized households with opportunities to escape general povery by providing them with access to better school districts.

Is it Fair?

But why should we just hand people the keys to market-rate homes?

Well, for one, because the government is ultimately responsible for raising the acceptable threshold of citizenry far enough to keep people from seeping out of the bottom of our society and into our streets. The fundamental justification for the existence of government is to provide its citizens with the safety and security that, as individuals, they cannot effectively provide on their own. It’s a social contract that requires us to give up a portion of our freedom by obeying the laws that we collectively put in place in exchange for the safety of our families, the protection of our property, and the security of our progress in life.

Yet it is evident that individuals experiencing homelessness are systematically denied these rights. They live in a completely different reality, where the government requires them to follow the law without being provided anything in return. They are told to move on, go away, don’t lie down, don’t sit down, don’t set up a tent there, get out of town, this is private property, this is public property, and given no chance to breathe or gather their voices in protest.The people in this Faustian bargain have attempted to reject society’s laws, as society has rejected them. With every reason to believe they will not be allowed back in, they have every right to do so.

We have been telling ourselves the wrong story – Housing First is an evidence-based practice. It clearly indicates that people require the safety and security of permanent housing to thrive, and we have plenty of it.

We have been using the housing affordability narrative as a crutch. It has enabled us to turn a blind eye to the true scale and degree of this crisis, and the simplicity of it's solution. We are 7 years into a state of emergency in King County that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives, despite the fact that a solution is readily available to us.

I hope this makes clear that our legal and political institutions are failing to protect the rights of it's citizens. The fact that homelessness still exists is a visual representation of that failure. The burden of homelessness is theirs to solve, and my hope is that this realization catalyzes a call for action from all of us.