Bellwetherhousing.org

Today’s guest blogger is Lynda Carey, Construction and Asset Manager at Bellwether

Do you have any idea how much water you use every day?

One of the many wonderful things about living in the United States, and in the Northwest in particular, is that when you turn on the kitchen or bathroom faucet, water comes out. It can be hot or cold! It’s drinkable! There are billions of people in the world who don’t have access to this amazing resource, yet most of us take it for granted – we don’t even know how much we use, or how much we depend on it, until it’s not available. And the same goes for electricity.

We at Bellwether don’t take water or energy use for granted – we’re committed to monitoring the energy performance of our apartment buildings using EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. We’ll draw on energy usage spreadsheets from this program to evaluate the success of past energy upgrades, compare energy performance to similar building types, and determine the need for future energy efficiency improvements.

No doubt, analyzing energy and water use data in an excel spreadsheet is not pretty and, for most, those spreadsheets might as well be Egyptian hieroglyphics.  It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. That goes for graphs too. Using graphs to tell our energy and water usage can be worth a thousand spreadsheets. Below is an example of how we are tracking our buildings’ water usage at Bellwether.

Last year, Bellwether joined the Seattle 2030 District. By becoming a member, Bellwether has made a pledge to work with other building owners and property managers to meet the District goals of a reduction in energy and water usage below the national average by 2015.

We know that our energy picture is already worth more than a thousand words and we’re confident that Bellwether will meet the 2030 goal.

How about you? Are you doing anything to reduce your energy and water consumption? Bellwether is doing this on a large scale but every little bit counts! We’d like to hear what you do in your household.

There was an article in Real Change earlier this month about the lottery for the wait list for Section 8 or “housing choice” vouchers. Next month, Seattle Housing Authority will open its waitlist and more than 10,000 families are expected to apply for only 2,000 open spots. If a lucky family gets picked in the lottery they get a place on the list. According to the article, once on the list, the wait can be years before an actual voucher is in hand. Many give up and move away before their names are up.

So let’s say you are one of the lucky ones. You have a voucher. Let’s even say you’ve had this voucher for many years. Did you know that all it takes are policy changes or budget cuts for the voucher to get taken away? It wasn’t until I read this article back in December that I fully realized this myself. I understand that the Section 8 program is not meant to be permanent. However, even people who are fully employed in service jobs such as retail or landscape maintenance – or people who have ongoing medical expenses – may not be able to pay their rent without Section 8 support.

We know that when a family, an individual, a child, has a stable place to live, other areas in their lives benefit. For example, children do better in school when they have somewhere to come home to every day. Yet this stability is completely lacking in the Section 8 rent subsidy program.

This article in the New York Times talks about the increasing need for affordable housing at the same time that funding and support for the few federal programs that provide housing assistance is decreasing. So unless something changes, the people most in need of stability will continue to live with uncertainty instead.

Organizations that provide affordable places to live are dealing with uncertainty, too. Here at Bellwether, we rely on public funding to build and buy apartments that are affordable – as the public funding shrinks, so does our ability to meet the growing need.

One of the most fundamental needs is shelter, a home, a stable place to live. Once people have that, they can begin to build the rest of their lives on a more solid foundation. Should it really be left up to luck?

I had dinner with a Seattle acquaintance last week who’d recently moved to Texas. She commented that she was shocked to learn that a waiter in Texas could get paid so little (as little as $2.13 per hour before tips). This got me thinking about Washington’s comparatively generous minimum wage of more than $9.00 per hour (it’s still not enough but is the highest in the country) and the social benefit that results from this amount.

At Bellwether we often talk about the benefits that our affordable apartments provide to our residents and throughout the community. One of these is economic: our residents can afford their rent and have more discretionary income to spend on groceries, clothing and other necessities. These purchases directly affect the local neighborhood and have a positive impact on businesses’ bottom line.

Now imagine what a difference a higher wage could make to an individual in addition to an affordable place to live. Economists often write about a “living wage”. But this term is really a misnomer as the wage is not adequate for a decent living. Rather, it covers only the very basic needs and leaves little (if anything) left over. With employment growing the most in the low-wage service industry more frustrated workers are making it clear that they need higher wages just to get by and as the article points out, all it takes are a few extra dollars an hour to equal a few thousand extra a year. And although this may seem like an expensive proposition, consider this report that explains the ripple effect of paying a worker more. The result is the same for those with higher wages and those residents who have affordable rent: more money is put back into the community.

So what would $5 more mean to you?  Take a look at the links in this post and share your thoughts.

What is the definition of affordable housing? The most basic: the people living there can afford to pay their rent. I recently read an article about residents in Hong Kong who pay $180 a month for what is no better than an enclosed bed, with a shared toilet and sink. That’s definitely affordable but could you thrive in this environment? I couldn’t. This is an extreme example but it makes me expand my definition of affordability to include options that promote a decent quality of life and independence.

Next, consider this version. Known as aPodments, I’ve seen them pop up in and around Capitol Hill recently. They provide decent storage, up-to-date safety codes, and shared community spaces with affordable rents. However, this design has its detractors (concern over choice of building materials, population density, and inability to blend in with community). Not to mention, it only caters to a single person. What about families? Although this might be a positive move in the right direction in creating more alternative options in affordable housing, this by no means addresses the multi-faceted needs of the city’s working people, seeking more affordable places to live throughout Seattle.

I think everyone should have the ability to afford a decent place to live in the city where they work. And there should be options available to everyone, whether you need a loft, a large studio or a place for your family. Another requirement – it should be near transit, jobs and services because transportation costs are a huge factor in affordability. Many nonprofits in and around Seattle – including Bellwether Housing of course! – work to address this need, and do it well, but the need continues to grow. As this study makes clear, the number of households who can’t afford their rent is increasing. If we care about housing affordability we need to pay attention.

What do you think? Is the issue of housing affordability being addressed in the best way?

Nearly 300 people gathered in Benaroya’s Grand Lobby to learn about the need for more affordable places to live and what Bellwether is doing to meet this growing need. With your help we raised $103,500!  These contributions will help further our mission – to provide affordable housing in Seattle – and will promote the triple bottom line benefits that housing supports: social – as families and individuals are able to afford rent, their stresses recede, their children succeed in school, they can save for the future, their communities thrive; economic – employers experience less absence and turnover when working people live near jobs and transit, and business thrives when people have more discretionary income; environmental – people who live near jobs, transit and services drive less, air quality is better.

To see our the videos from the breakfast please click below.

Donations are always welcome!  If you weren’t able to contribute earlier you may do so by clicking here.

Mark your calendar! Thursday, October 4, 2012, Bellwether will host our
second annual breakfast event to engage Seattle business and community
leaders in learning more about the triple bottom line benefits of
affordable rents. Learn more about sponsorship, being a table captain,
and registering for the event, at Closer to Home.

Do you know that working people in Seattle need affordable housing? Here’s an unavoidable reality: many people with full-time or part-time jobs – or more than one job! – face a growing gulf between what they earn and what it costs to rent a place to live. Minimum wage is simply not enough to afford to pay market-rate rents. 

Let’s consider an example of someone you may not think about – but someone we rely on every day in this city—a hospital custodian. A full-time custodian (40 hours/week, 52 weeks/year) at a medical center such as Harborview, near downtown Seattle, earns about $11.50 per hour, for a yearly income (before taxes) of $23,920. For this custodian, the cost of rent and utilities should be no more than $598/month to be considered affordable. If you’re from the area, you know that finding a safe, clean and quality apartment for $598 (including utilities!) in or near downtown Seattle is next to impossible. If the custodian wants to live close to the hospital, in a clean and safe apartment, it’s more realistic that he/she will end up paying around $900/mo for rent and utilities. That’s nearly half of the custodian’s income! After modest withholding, the custodian ends up with about $200 a week to pay for groceries, clothing, insurance, medical bills, etc. There’s certainly not enough left over to save for the future.

As you can see, the people who work in our hospitals, restaurants, schools and local stores are often one paycheck away from financial crisis – perhaps homelessness – unless there are affordable places to live in our cities. Without that affordability, the individuals and families that help sustain our cities are pushed out.

Thursday morning’s Seattle Times reported the results of a study that ranks Seattle as the 10^th-worst city in the US for traffic delays. Based on 2009 data, the delay alone cost car commuters more than $1000 per year in extra gas and lost time! That doesn’t take into consideration the total cost of commuting. And with the rising cost of operating a car, it’s probably much higher in 2010!

So, why do people live so far away from their jobs? For some, it’s a choice based on the lifestyle they want. But for many people, it doesn’t seem like much of a choice – we have to live where we can afford the rent. And without enough affordable apartments and homes in the city, where most of the jobs are located, many working people spend hours commuting from far away.

Living far from a job often means spending less money on rent, but more on transportation. For working people in the Seattle area, the total cost of housing and transportation averages more than 60% of household income! That doesn’t leave much for other necessities.

The money is a big concern for people who live from paycheck to paycheck working at jobs that we all rely on (health care support, child care, retail, janitorial, hospitality, and so on) – and so is the time that working people should be able to spend with their families, instead of commuting.

There are other impacts of long commutes, too – like environmental quality. More on that in a future post.

People should have choices to live close to their jobs, to services they need, to their schools and communities. We need more of those choices that are affordable for everyone!

How would you spend an extra $11,000 per year? Our last article was about the time and money people can save by avoiding the gridlock that goes with commuting. And about the social, environmental and economic importance of affordable places to live, near jobs, services and transportation.

In the past couple of weeks, with gas prices skyrocketing, the subject of commuting and money has become even more urgent. Last Friday, the American Public Transportation Association published a report about how much money people can save, on average, by taking the bus or train to work. In the Seattle area, the average savings is $973 per month. That’s a LOT of money!

You may ask yourself what this has to do with affordable apartments. So here it is, again: when we live far from work and services, we may save money on rent, but we spend more to commute. Think how much more of a home or apartment I could afford if I could save $973 per month on my commute!

But what about people who struggle to find the time or the money for the commute at all? How can people who work as cleaners, retail clerks, or child care givers, pay rent and transportation costs and have enough left over for other necessities? For many people the costs are unmanageable. 

The answer? Affordable apartments close to jobs, services and public transportation.  Ask Joel M., who lives in a Housing Resources Group apartment building in Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood, which made it possible for him to accept a job in Queen Anne – he couldn’t have afforded to commute from where he used to live in Everett. Or talk to Kim D., a retired nurse whose HRG apartment is in the Denny Triangle neighborhood – she can walk everywhere, to the grocery store, to the library, to the doctor’s office…

Sounds good, doesn’t it? But too many people still pay more than they can afford for a place to live and the transportation they need. So how can we create and preserve affordable apartments in the city? How do communities make affordability happen? What are the challenges? Stay tuned.