Last week, the Seattle Times reported that average income for the top 20 percent of Seattle income earners grew by about $15,000 between 2012 and 2013. For the bottom 20 percent, it was a different story. Their incomes averaged just under $13,000 annually.
In a city where rents are rising more rapidly than anywhere else in the nation, the incomes of the poorest people saw no improvement.
There are two things here that should shock any thoughtful person. The first is that 20 percent of Seattle residents live on an average of less than $13,000 annually.
Anyone wondering why there is so much visible misery on our streets need look no further.
The second is that in a single year, the incomes of the richest 20 percent rose by more than the entire annual incomes of the poorest people.
Over the past three decades, federal housing policy has moved away from support for public housing and Section 8 rental subsidies toward the promotion of home ownership. This approach has supported rising inequality. More than 75 percent of federal housing expenditures go toward tax breaks for homeowners, and most of this supports households with incomes in the top 20 percent.
A federal tax credit for renters would go a long way toward easing the housing crisis.
Right now, this doesn’t seem politically promising, but with a support of a visible national movement for housing fairness and income equality, that could change.
The last time I saw a national protest movement for affordable housing was the late ’80s, which culminated in the 1989 Housing Now March that brought more than 150,000 people to the streets of Washington, D.C.
This gave rise to the McKinney-Vento Act, part of a national infrastructure for funding homeless services. From this, we got 10-year plans and the Housing First model of “ending homelessness.”
This was, I believe, a pyrrhic victory.
When I look at the 25-year history of our drift from Housing Now to Housing First, I don’t see a lot of progress. I see lowered expectations and political retreat.
Housing Now was a public protest movement that organized from the bottom up, with tactics that ranged from local housing takeovers to mass demonstrations in D.C. Housing First has mostly involved housing and human service professionals, and it has had none of the militancy that the inclusion of those most affected often brings.
Housing Now looked to the federal government to restore the drastic cuts to public housing that took place under Reagan. Housing First has placed most of the responsibility for affordable housing on the city, county and state level, and it has replaced federal dollars with reliance upon nonprofits and churches.
Housing Now drew attention to a pattern of tax breaks for the wealthy, increased military spending and attacks upon services for the poor. Housing First mostly avoids the larger issues of inequality and government priorities. It is an approach that even a Utah Republican could love.
Housing Now fought for poor and low-income people in general. Housing First often leaves those who rate lower on the vulnerability index — a tool used to measure disability and risk of death — on the street for years on end.
Housing Now viewed ending homelessness seriously and thought it could be achieved. Housing First confuses reductions in chronic homelessness with homelessness itself, and it promotes a narrative of success while actual numbers of homeless people have continued to rise.
Housing First is a human-services triage tent that stands on the sidelines of the war on poor people. Unless we address inequality itself, we’ll always lose in the end. A federal renters’ tax credit would be a big step in the right direction.