Affordable housing shortage hurts people, families and communities

by the Right Reverend Thomas Clark Ely, Bishop of Vermont
Mountain Echo
February 2004

“I feel like my hometown has become a Country Club and I can’t afford the admission price.” Those painful words from the lips of a native Vermonter go to the heart of the housing shortage crisis we face in Vermont. They are also the last words on a video presentation produced by the Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign, a resource that I highly recommend to you.

I have lived in Vermont for three years now, and I am blessed with a wonderful house that has truly become home for Ann and me. Many Vermonters—and many Vermonters in our congregations—are equally fortunate, but many are not. There is an affordable housing shortage crisis in Vermont, and the good news is that plenty of folks in Vermont are trying to do something about it. I believe the Episcopal Church needs to be part of that effort. Some of us already are! My hope is that more and more of us will get involved as part of our baptismal commitment to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being.

Here is some information I have gleaned about the reality, especially through my contact with John Fairbanks from the Vermont Housing and Finance Agency:
• Housing costs are soaring—the median price of a home in Vermont has jumped 53% since 1996, and 10% between 2002-2003 alone. It is now $149,000.
• The average home sales price in Vermont in 2003 was almost twice the median—$287,000. So we aren’t building “starter homes;” we’re building high-end homes.
• Only 6% of the new homes sold in Vermont in 2003 were within reach of a Vermont household making the state’s median income.
• Since 1996, the Fair Market Rent for a modest two-bedroom apartment has gone up 28%. It’s now $717 a month. Meanwhile, Vermonters’ wages have not kept pace, increasing about 20 percent.
• Vermont’s “housing wage”—the amount of money a household needs to earn to afford the fair market rent while working 40 hours a week and paying no more than 30 percent of income for housing—is up to $13.78 per hour.
• Sixty-one percent of Vermont workers—about 156,000 people—are working in jobs whose median wages are below the “housing wage” of $13.78 per hour. This, of course, includes a lot of people we depend on for basic goods and services, including EMTs, store clerks, childcare workers, secretaries, cooks, farm workers. I have personally seen and felt the impact of this reality as I have watched my youngest daughter struggle to make ends meet, pay the rent and still have a life, with her full time day care job (sometimes two jobs).
• As a consequence of this gap between housing costs and wages, 49% of Vermont households who rent pay more than 30% of their income for rent. This also means that thousands of Vermonters who once could have afforded a starter home now can’t. And homelessness continues to plague us. Most disturbingly, the largest increase in the homeless population in Vermont is families with children, and many of these families are working. They just don’t earn enough to afford to keep a roof over their heads.

The reasons why people of faith should care about this crisis are familiar ones to you, for they go to the heart of our values. Housing is a basic need, and providing basic needs is a community responsibility. The Church and its ministry are an extension of Christ’s love and concern that none are left out. Whenever we encounter the reality that some among us are lacking in basic needs, the words of Jesus ring in my ears with power and passion: “Whatsoever you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, that you do unto me.”

A housing shortage hurts people and it hurts families. What’s more, it hurts communities, undermining their diversity as well as their social and economic vitality. People of faith know that we are inextricably bound to one another as members of God’s whole human family. “Whenever one suffers, all suffer.” Justice and the dignity of every human being are values for people of faith. Those in our state who are seeking to address this crisis need the ethical voice that people of faith bring to matters of human dignity and justice. I am trying to lend mine and I hope you will be inspired to lend yours.

Copies of the video produced by the Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign were available for each of our congregations at Diocesan Convention in CD-Rom format. If your congregation did not receive its copy, please call the Diocesan Office and we’ll send it to you. It makes for a great discussion starter for a Sunday Adult Forum.

For more information about this matter and to connect yourself and your congregation to this important issue, please be in touch with me or visit the Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign website: www.housingawareness.org. There you will find housing facts about your area of Vermont and many ways that you can help make a difference. You can even watch the video if you have Windows Media Player. This is a true partnership of the public and private sector and it is an effort worthy of our time, talent and treasure.

Thanks for thinking about this and for all the many ways you keep reminding me and showing me that people of faith can and do make a difference.

Faithfully,
+ Thomas