Finding Good Homes Remains a Challenge for Central Virginia

Type_webhead_here Fourteen housing nonprofits will join together during the week of April 20-25 to host the Richmond region's second Affordable Housing Awareness Week. It is an interesting time to hold such an event, because many people believe that housing affordability is a far less pressing issue today than it was five years ago or even just nine months ago.

But that's not really the case. Granted, in the past year, house prices have fallen in the Richmond metropolitan area. Plus interest rates are at historic lows. So, yes, technically, home ownership is more affordable today than it was a year ago. And as a Realtor I will proclaim loud and long that now is a fantastic time to buy a house. It is.

Yet the opportunity for someone to own a home remains dependent on having good credit and a steady job that pays good wages. Thus, for many in our region, the challenge to locate and secure affordable housing is as difficult today as it has been in the past.

In the past nine years, house prices in metropolitan Richmond had a cumulative appreciation rate of 85.9 percent. To keep pace with rising house costs, workers would have had to have seen their incomes increase by more than 9 percent each year. I don't know too many people who have seen annual pay raises like that.

Simply put, the gap between housing costs and wages expanded at a fast and furious pace for the first part of this decade, and despite a recent softening in the housing market, the gap -- and the challenge of housing affordability for many -- remains considerable.

The inability to purchase a home is just one aspect of the multifaceted issue of affordable housing. Many within our community wish to rent rather than own housing -- hence the affordability challenge is to ensure an adequate supply of quality rental housing throughout the region.

The failure to develop and maintain adequate inventories of affordable rental and owner-occupied housing can have far-reaching consequences for the region's economy and quality of life.

Consider just one example: Thousands of young adults will graduate from our colleges and universities this spring, and they will seek to establish themselves both professionally and personally in Metro Richmond. We want these young people in our community. They are our future civic, corporate, religious, and governmental leaders. They bring energy, innovation, creativity, and enthusiasm to our community. Whether these young adults wish to rent or own, we must be ready, willing, and able to accommodate their housing needs. If we are not, we will lose them.

Of course, the spectrum of housing affordability is broader still than the issues of rental and owner-occupied housing. For many of our most vulnerable citizens, the issue of housing is as basic and as literal as a roof over their heads.

For the homeless among us (1,150 men, women, and children on any given day in Metro Richmond), affordable housing means access to temporary shelter. For others, it means the opportunity to transition from temporary shelter to permanent, supportive housing. For others, the challenge they face is the need to make modifications to their home, so they can age in place, or a disabled family member can continue to reside in the home.

Whether the need is for rental or owner-occupied housing, whether the age of the occupants is 22 or 82, and whether those facing the challenge earn far below the area median income, the challenge for us as a community is to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of a variety of affordable housing options in all the jurisdictions of the region.

Moreover, these housing options should be located in neighborhoods that boast safe streets, feed into excellent schools, are serviced by public transportation, and are located in close proximity to good-paying jobs. If we meet all these challenges, then we will have accomplished far more than providing affordable housing -- we will have created communities of opportunity; communities in which all of our residents have the opportunity to flourish and to contribute to the common good of our region.

So some may question the timing of an affordable housing week, but I cannot think of a better time. We all know people who have lost their jobs. Some of us know folks who are struggling to pay the rent or families facing foreclosure. Today, many of us have a far greater appreciation of what it means to call a place home than we did just a few short months ago.

Affordable Housing Awareness Week presents us with a chance to turn this empathy into action. During the week, there will be hundreds of opportunities to volunteer at affordable housing work sites in the region. Through your efforts, many of your fellow citizens will be able to secure the affordable housing they need.

Visit http://www.AffordableHousingRichmond.com to learn more and to volunteer. You will never have a better time to help us meet the challenge.

Jim Napier is president of Napier REALTORS ERA and chair of the Partnership for Housing Affordability. He can be reached at .