A Needed Reckoning on Housing
Two devastating and deadly apartment fires in two major cities in the span of less than a week highlight illustrate how much America's housing situation is deteriorating
Publisher’s Riff
We’re now faced, so far, with a combined 31 deaths between two multi-level apartment fires in two neighboring Northeast Amtrak Corridor cities - Philadelphia and New York - within the span of less than a week. There will be many floating narratives about the causes of these fires and how the victims, or the inhabitants in these crowded housing situations, caused the fires. But, judging from the demographics of those affected (all Black in Philadelphia and mostly Black, Brown and Muslim in the Bronx, and all low-income) and the fact that these are densely populated multi-family housing units built or repurposed into “affordable housing,” it’s clear that the lack of affordable housing circumstances led to this. The Washington Post calls it …
More than 60 people were injured as smoke engulfed the 19-story building in the Bronx, sending dozens to the hospital in critical condition as about 200 firefighters responded, authorities said. Families of the victims huddled in the halls of a nearby school, crying out as they got news of each death.
Nine of those who died were 16 or younger, according to an official with the mayor’s office. The Bronx fire was the second blaze in less than week to underscore the vulnerabilities of those living in multifamily housing, echoing the disaster at a crowded Philadelphia rowhouse where a fire killed a dozen people, including eight children.
In each of these cases, we’re finding or we will find a confluence of bad public policy conditions and decisions which led to the tragedy. Policymakers will attempt to avoid that conversation and have us all stuck in the usual boilerplate “thoughts and prayers” comments in the aftermath of destructive events like this. But, there is, truly, an affordable housing crisis in America that is getting worse (… and it was always bad). We forget that nearly 40 percent of the nation’s residents rent. Most of them tend to represent a lower income demographic and are non-White. That has translated into a battle for increasingly scarce space and a lack of spaces that people in distressed economic circumstances can afford to live in.
Meanwhile, cities and surrounding metropolitan areas are becoming more and more expensive to exist or, much less, thrive in. That is rapidly displacing low-income residents or forcing them into untenable living situations. In the case of Philadelphia, 26 people were sardine-stuffed into one row-home owned by the public housing authority; in New York, dozens of families were crowded into a space that, based on initial reports, was lacking essential safety architecture.
Reporting will, naturally, focus in on the personal choices or decisions of building occupants which triggered the fires: in Philadelphia, it’s a child playing with a lighter next to a Christmas tree; in the Bronx, it’s someone’s unattended space heater. But, anytime there is a deadly fire or high casualty destruction in a tight multi-family living space happening - whereby the body count has increased due to the absence of basic safety features like built-in sprinklers, fire extinguishers and escape exits - that all points to a major public policy failure. This failure to provide affordable and safe housing will fall, predominantly, on Black and Brown populations because those are the populations most likely pushed to renting …
People are being punished to live in sub-par or unsafe conditions simply because of their income and they are at higher risk of dying simply because they can’t afford a higher rent. Don’t forget the historic Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people in London right before the pandemic in 2019 - similar situation involving a “social housing complex” where low income people couldn’t afford to live anywhere else with higher rent in super-expensive London that was safer. Lower rent automatically resigns you to a lower standard of living.
Rents are rising, relentlessly and mercilessly, even in pandemic and even as families are struggling to find adequate employment and a COVID-infection environment that doesn’t prevent them from working
And, despite the difficulty of the times, policymakers, developers and landlords are not blinking …
As rents rise, so does the risk of evictions. Policymakers can tout all the eviction diversion and moratorium programs they want, it still won’t help the situation as economically distressed families are hanging by a thread: many are trying to hold on to a job while children are forced to stay at home during COVID infection spikes. Many can’t go to work due to an infection or the lack of access to a rapid test. COVID disruptions are actually worsening …
Eviction risks are higher for, of course, mostly Black neighborhoods, as Brookings shows …
The Washington Post reports …
…. [W]orking parents said they feel like they’ve exhausted goodwill at their companies over the past two years. They feel worn out and are wrestling with the reality that sporadic school closures could continue for years. Despite the tight job market, lower-income parents in particular said they had far fewer options.
“It’s a whole new level of stress for working parents,” said Rasheed Malik, the director of early childhood policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “It’s especially affecting lower-wage and in-person workers in a serious way that could lead to a lot of kids just having to be left at home or in less safe caregiving arrangements than what parents want.”
Hourly service workers with young children reported disproportionately frequent disruptions early in the pandemic, with 60 percent of families experiencing job losses and 45 percent taking on additional caregiving duties, according to a study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in October 2020. And child-care concerns remain among the top reasons people say they had not worked in the preceding seven days, according to data from a U.S. Census Bureau survey in October.
These situations are increasingly unsustainable. If they are not fixed, if there is no true reckoning that arrives at a truly affordable housing solution for families that need relief, we are going to face more events like what transpired this past week. We are going to collapse.