The housing affordability crisis is something that we all feel crushed by, but at the same time we don’t know what to do about it. The housing crisis directly and disproportionately impacts people with disabilities for a multitude of reasons.  As with many current events, there is a desire to read a headline and jump into action because, at that moment, there is a single surmountable problem and solution. However, like other systemic problems, housing affordability cannot be quickly addressed by one solution — it’s layered, nuanced, and at times complicated. 

This article aims to provide an accessible view of the many layers at play in housing solutions to help advocates, like yourself, understand why a specific policy is worth standing up for.  When advocating for disability-forward housing solutions it’s helpful to do so in the context of the larger housing affordability challenges and the solutions that support more people having access to more homes.

Many policies focus on the San Francisco Bay Area, the home to The Kelsey’s first two development projects, and the location that  several authors refer to as the epicenter of the national housing crisis. The majority of these policies are applicable across the United States though; the politics of housing can have many flavors, but the policy of housing is based on federal policies and lending practices from banks.

In 2017, the housing affordability crisis profoundly affected the Bay Area. We started to see two polarizing housing markets emerge: One in which the region  experienced a loss of very low-, low- and moderate-income households across all racial groups; and another where both extremely low- and high income households increased. Essentially, we watched the wealth gap widen before our eyes. These market changes disproportionately affect people with disabilities who  experience higher rates of poverty and discrimination. Another important note is that people with disabilities risk eligibility  to receive certain services if their incomes become too high.

This wealth gap and ensuing housing affordability crisis led to several groups across the region to come together to design policies to change the Bay Area’s housing trajectory. They determined that three forces were needed, at the same time, to see positive results:

We will look into how each of these forces is important to having enough accessible, affordable, and inclusive housing for everyone that lives in the Bay Area. At The Kelsey, we define these in the following terms: 

Across the Bay Area and California, we have underbuilt housing for decades; most estimates project we need at least two million homes to keep up with current demand. Although older housing is excellent, newer housing tends to be the most accessible to people who use power chairs/wheelchairs or have sensory sensitivities. 

Many steps go into building new homes, and as a result, many policies get in the way of the homes getting built. Let’s understand production by reviewing the process of how homes in the Bay Area get built: 

Also referred to as Land Use policies, these are the rules that the towns, cities, and states make to determine what can get built and where. In the last several years it has become more clear how poorly designed policies put into place generations ago have thwarted equal access to housing. Carol Galante, Faculty Director at the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation makes a great case for why current zoning rules are broken. In short, to increase the production of more accessible, affordable, and inclusive homes, policies need to evolve to allow for denser housing developments to be built in more places.

With good Land Use advocacy, the state can be well-positioned and have places where two million new homes can be built. As disability housing advocates, though, we also want the homes built to be accessible and designed for people with and without disabilities. Local governments set minimum design standards, but they can be made better by global certification programs. For instance, the most environmentally sustainable homes are built using Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards to guide their home designs. 

What if we, as disability housing advocates, had a nationally recognized set of standards that went beyond ADA and put people with disabilities at the center of the design. This is currently called Universal Design and while it has increased access, it doesn’t comprehensively address all needs of people with disabilities. A new set of standards that build off of the Universal Design principles would create more accessible, well-designed homes, and also save home builders money by not having to “recreate the wheel” every time they wanted to build an accessible building, beyond physical accessibility needs. At The Kelsey, we are working on those standards right now and look forward to influencing our local community leaders to incentivize home builders to use these design principles and standards in new construction. 

We need to be building housing affordable for people at all ranges and stages of life–for people experiencing homelessness to people buying their first homes; from people with disabilities living on social security to people making the median salary in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, new housing is very expensive to build. 

Because of the 2008 recession and the high cost of housing, the construction industry in the Bay Area has been hard hit by the lack of skilled labor to build new homes. This vicious cycle has resulted in the cost of construction continuing to rise, even amid a new recession. This means that, right now, nothing but the most expensive housing can be built without subsidies. 

In the short term, we need to increase subsidies of all types:

All of these exist right now, but as a home builder, The Kelsey can attest there are not enough subsidies for the level of need. Many of these sources are very difficult and expensive to access, and none currently incentivize the production of disability-inclusive housing.

During a period where rents and housing prices are rapidly rising, like we had seen in California over the last decade, there is an opportunity for arbitrage. Arbitrage is getting a different price for the same asset within a different market. During a housing affordability crisis, the different price would be higher rent paid by a tenant, the asset would be a home, and the different market would be the type of tenant/owner to whom an owner can rent or sell. 

There are many examples of arbitrage in housing, but here is one example: an owner of a building can practice arbitrage by simply adding a layer of paint, replacing old appliances, and marketing their rental home to higher-income tenants. This is practiced often when a current tenant is paying rent that is less than market rent for the home, or rents that you can find on rental sites, such as craigslist. The side effect is that the current tenant, paying affordable rents, needs to move out of that home in order for a new tenant, paying higher rents, to move in. 

In this example, the owner of this policy is incentivized to get higher, market rates for their property. However, with good protection policies, there can be equal and opposite dis-incentive to remove an existing tenant. Protection policies include: 

People with disabilities experience homelessness at a higher rate than the general population and are less likely to find housing that can accommodate their needs once they become homeless. For this reason, towns, cities, and states can adopt policies like eviction controls and rent controls to ensure that all tenants, including those with disabilities, are protected. In places where there are rapid increases in rental and home prices, these protections are even more important to counterbalance the natural incentives that homeowners have to increase the amount of monthly or annual return on their investment. 

Another concept to consider when thinking about housing affordability is land value. In many places where the cost of housing is high, this is related to the high cost of the land on which a home sits. Because of this, sometimes there are more profitable uses for that land on which housing already is built, for instance, a large mansion to replace an affordable cottage. If it weren’t for preservation policies, landowners would be incentivized to build a mansion instead of a cottage; however, that might have negative effects on the neighborhood and region. 

The cottage in the example above is considered naturally occurring in affordable housing (NOAH). NOAHs are older, have fewer amenities, but offer a rental or ownership opportunity in a neighborhood that a person might otherwise not be able to afford. NOAHs can also be older apartment buildings, smaller single occupancy rooms, or similar types of housing. 

In a housing market where home and rental prices are escalating quickly, a strategy to stabilize communities is to preserve existing affordable homes. This strategy prevents the displacement of community members and can be done by adopting several strategies: 

Preservation policies are essential to maintain the fabric of a community that provides natural support systems to people with and without disabilities. 

You can see that housing policies are nuanced and complex, and have no silver bullet. Understanding the 3Ps helps advocates for all types of housing better define their policy strategies and the desired goals of their efforts. In advocacy for disability-forward housing you might focus on protection by defining ways to prevent eviction and strategies to fight housing discrimination against disabled people. You might, like The Kelsey, work to increase the number of homes available and affordable to people with disabilities by building new housing and policies that support housing production. You might look at ways to preserve existing housing to stay affordable and create funding mechanisms to upgrade the accessibility of those homes. All these strategies, and more, support an inclusive housing future. By understanding these three elements – Production, Preservation, and Protection – you can be better prepared to effectively advocate for policies that will create more affordability, more accessibility, and more inclusion in your community and beyond.