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Too Poor for Hot Housing Market, Too Affluent for Buyer Assistance
Definitions Differ
Although the local housing market appears now to be cooling, the median price for a house in much of the region remains well above $400,000. People such as Halford say they are priced out of something that by rights should be theirs. In her case, that means a two-bedroom condominium with two bathrooms, a washer and dryer and secure parking.
"I don't think that's asking a lot," she said. She'll settle for less: one bathroom and a hookup for the washer and dryer.
  Renter Gwendolyn Halford, foreground, studies the kitchen of a Silver Spring home with agents Michelle Velilla, left, and Sadie Mungro. (By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post) |
There is no unanimity on what workforce housing means. In some areas, it is a new, more politically salable name for affordable housing. Elsewhere it is about helping those who are too rich to qualify and too poor to buy. And as some jurisdictions focus efforts directly on government workers, others aim their programs more broadly.
The District, for instance, uses workforce to mean those with salaries 40 to 80 percent of the area's median income. "When you get into 120 [percent], those folks are generally making upwards of six digits," said Stanley Jackson, deputy mayor for planning and economic development and a former housing director. "We have a huge population here of folks who are making substantially less than that. Some of our [government] workers are making substantially less than that."
Officials in Alexandria have not defined what they mean by workforce. In Montgomery, a bill introduced by council member Steven A. Silverman (D-At Large) would apply to households with salaries that are 120 percent of the area median income or less, meaning that a family of four with an income of $107,000 would qualify.
At an October conference in the District on "inclusionary zoning" -- the practice of requiring developers to include price-controlled units in market-rate developments -- urban policy consultant David Rusk offered some advice to policymakers: "Advocate [inclusionary zoning] primarily as meeting workforce housing needs rather than advancing social justice," he said in a keynote speech, although he urged listeners to maintain their commitment to affordable housing for the poor.
In Montgomery, where Silverman and former council member Isiah Leggett are seeking the Democratic nomination for county executive, the debate is about kinds of workforce housing, with little discussion of options for the poor.
They rarely acknowledge that Montgomery's affordable housing programs for low-income residents are treading water. The county's inclusionary zoning program, a national model, has produced more than 11,000 price-controlled units since 1974, more than a quarter of the total produced in the United States.
But officials and experts say Montgomery now must struggle to maintain its affordable housing stock. In recent years, as the pace of development has subsided, only 200 or so new price-controlled units have come online annually.
Nearly 17,000 names are on closed waiting lists maintained by Montgomery's Housing Opportunities Commission to track those seeking public housing or federally funded vouchers for low-income renters.
Last year, nearly half of the $21 million in disbursements from Montgomery's Housing Initiative Fund went to buy and renovate apartment buildings that officials considered "threatened." In many cases, the threat came from an owner who intended to convert affordable apartments into luxury units.
"We have a need for tens of thousands of affordable and workforce units here," Leggett said. He argued that Silverman's plan amounts to "nibbling around the edges" of the problem and proposed that the county develop entire projects of price-controlled housing.