Housing Crisis Topic of 2022 Social Justice Conference

Imagine being one broken-down car or one unexpected medical bill away from eviction and homelessness.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), that is a stark reality for many as the United States faces a severe shortage of affordable homes amidst gaping holes in the social safety net for extremely low-income households.

The Housing Crisis: Empowering Social Workers Toward Action was the topic of the 24th Annual Social Justice Conference held on May 19 and hosted by the St. Ambrose University School of Social Work.

Paul Kealey, keynote speaker and Chief Operating Officer of the NLIHC, noted the grim reality in his opening remarks. The U.S. has a national shortage of 7 million affordable and available rental homes for the nation's 11 million extremely low rental income households.

"This means that nationwide there are just 36 rental homes that are affordable and available for every 100 extremely low-income households in the United States," said Kealey. "No single State or metro area in the country has an adequate supply of rental housing for the lowest-income households.

"The results of this shortage is that over 70% of extremely low-income households are spending more than half of their limited resources on housing with insufficient funds left over for food, transportation, medicines, and other basic needs; this is the definition of housing or shelter poverty."

Kealey also pointed to the pandemic and how it highlighted the precarious housing situation, and, perhaps more notably, that "housing is healthcare," making clear the systemic racial disparities that harm, most specifically black, indigenous, and people of color.

"Black, indigenous, and people of color are disproportionately extremely low-income renters," said Kealey. "Black individuals make up 13% of the U.S population, but they make up 40% of the people experiencing homelessness. This is disgraceful.

"The pandemic made our collective responsibility to fight for housing and racial injustice clear. It also revealed how we can quickly and effectively respond to keep renters at the risk of homelessness safe, secure, healthy, and housed. We as a nation rose to the challenge and achieved historic, unprecedented resources and protections for renters and unhoused people during the pandemic."

The question seems clear, if these solutions worked during the pandemic, then why could they not continue to form a pathway to alleviate homelessness? Kealey listed numerous long-term solutions, noting, "Our federal government must invest in these solutions to make homes affordable to the lowest income people."

The Quad Cities Housing Cluster proposed the following Silos to Solutions as the initial phase to address the affordable housing crisis:

• Production - Address the gap of 6,645 affordable units for households (in the Quad-Cities) identified as Extremely Low income through a combination of new construction, rehabilitation of existing properties no longer on the market, or fit for habitation, and bringing affordability through rental subsidies.
• Preservation - Maintain, improve and/or rehabilitate 95 percent of existing affordable units to ensure availability and quality.
• Protection - Reduce eviction rates through coordinated efforts to provide tenant education and advocacy, minimize unsafe living conditions, distribute homeless prevention funds and resolve landlord-tenant disputes through mediation.
• Provision - Provide services that help individuals and families maintain housing stability.
• Payment - Increase the (region's) Local Housing Trust Fund to provide $1 million annually, available in Iowa and Illinois Quad Cities.
• Partnership - Engage community partnerships, program participants, and citizens to foster dialogue and generate action on affordable housing.

For more information visit the NLIHC website