Needed: Commitment to Housing
More than 100 builders, public housing officials, real-estate agents, elected officials and employers met recently to discuss one of Orange County’s most serious economic and social problems--the lack of affordable housing.
It was the first countywide forum of its kind ever held in Orange County and was long overdue. And while the public and private sectors considered the problem and talked of the “housing affordability gap,” which is now worse than at any time since they started measuring it 11 years ago, the great American dream of home ownership slipped further and further away from most residents.
According to the latest figures, the median resale home price in Orange County in February hit a record high of $179,999, the highest in the nation. And although wages in the county are high, they are not high enough to permit most residents to buy homes. Fewer than 3 out of 10 households in the county earn the minimum annual income of $55,457 needed to qualify for a mortgage. And housing prices are rising more than twice as fast as wages, which widens that affordability gap and prices even more people out of the home-buying market.
The most glaring result of the county’s imbalance between jobs and affordable housing--forcing so many thousands of people who work here to live elsewhere--is evident daily in frustrating traffic tie-ups on virtually every major road and freeway.
Less evident, but just as real, is the threat the lack of affordable housing poses for the county’s economic and environmental health.
The availability of affordable housing determines the makeup of the county’s labor pool, which in turn, along with traffic congestion caused by the need to commute to lower-priced homes, determines whether business firms will move into the county, expand existing facilities or move elsewhere. The more people who have to live elsewhere and commute, the worse the traffic and pollution problem will grow, causing more businesses to consider other locations. Increasing material, labor and land costs add to the price of new homes. But so do the fees state and local governments levy against developers and the delays caused by governmental red tape in processing developments.
Realizing that it will take a cooperative effort of the public and private sectors to produce more affordable housing is important. But that has been evident for years. What has been missing, as those attending the forum seemed to realize, is the leadership and political determination needed to make things happen. The missing ingredient, in a word, is commitment. When builders and building officials bring that to the problem, the “gap” will narrow and more lower-income people finally will be able to find homes they can afford.
