Maxwell Drever Explains How Affordable Workforce Housing Can Solve the Problem of the People

Featured Image Caption: Housing

The low-to-medium wage earners struggle to buy or rent a house in the community they serve because of the expensive accommodations. They live in the outskirts and deal with transport challenges. While it may seem to be their issue alone on the outside, a deep look into different facets would reveal its implication on everyone’s life, including society or nation. The high housing cost is a matter of headache for employers, local governments, coffee shops, wealthy homeowners, and others by many counts. Let’s dig into them quickly to understand why it is a real problem.

Traffic congestion

As per general belief, adding a higher number of residents to a place increases a load of cars on the road, while the truth is something else – not building them creates traffic pressure, instead. If people cannot stay closer to the job locations, they will put up at an economical place and drive to work every day. The daily commute between home and office will cause traffic jams and have adverse environmental effects too. According to some studies, low-income groups make more trips before relocating to an area with poor connectivity. However, high-income groups use less transit even if they stay in the most well-connected neighborhood.

Travel demands play a critical role in traffic. And this factor is attributable to the fact that local workers cannot stay near their job locations, and hence, need to use transport more frequently.

Low consumer spending

Maxwell Drever points out the importance of consumer spending for the US economy. Since a considerable part of one’s income goes into housing, the more one spends on this, the less he can spend on other things. Local and regional businesses also suffer from the short supply of affordable workforce housing. However, the situation can improve with the availability of affordable housing. It can give a push to growth and employment rate in various sectors. And all these can lead to a multiplier effect.

The public and private sector employment challenge

From the federal government to local stores, expensive housing prices pose significant concerns for every employer. Both the sectors depend on contract workers with low wages for various jobs, such as security, maintenance, servers, cashiers, bellhops, room cleaners, cooks, etc. Similarly, wealthy households need gardeners, maids, and nannies. All of these and other workers form an integral part of the local economy. Everyone wants them to live near the place. But again, the scarcity of affordable homes for them makes it impossible. They either choose far-flung areas or ignore the neighborhoods with high prices.

Many companies are unable to fill positions because of this. The spatial mismatch is not helping middle-class workers either, such as government employees, frontline health workers, etc. They also suffer from the same problem.

Experts say that inaccessibility to jobs impacts economic growth. At the same time, it creates sustainability issues. After paying for rent, they hardly get to save much for other needs. As a result, their daily living standard takes a hit. Children don’t receive a proper education. Patients have to compromise with health. All these things eventually mar the country’s progress and the well-being of its countrymen. That’s why these issues demand urgent attention.