Report: New Orleanians don’t earn enough to afford even modest housing

27th July 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer

The recent release of an annual report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition reveals that many New Orleanians don’t earn a high enough wage to afford modest housing rental prices in the city.

According to the report, released earlier this month and titled, “Out of Reach 2020: The High Cost of Housing,” a full-time worker in New Orleans must make $20.73 per hour in order to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment at fair-market prices.

The picture isn’t much better for the state as a whole, with Louisiana renters needing to make $17.48 an hour to afford such living accommodations.

With the federal minimum wage stuck at just $7.25 since 2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to cripple the American economy, fair-housing advocates say the “Out of Reach” report is even more bad news for workers across the country, throughout Louisiana and in New Orleans.

HousingNOLA executive director Andreanecia Morris said the housing crisis facing New Orleans is even larger than the situation after Hurricane Katrina.

“This is probably the worst it’s ever been,” she said, “and that’s saying a lot given what’s happened the last 15 years. About 50 percent of renters in New Orleans were housing insecure before COVID, and now they’re even more vulnerable.”

The NLIHC released the report in conjunction with HousingLOUISIANA and its local affiliate, Housing NOLA, a 10-year joint effort between community leaders and dozens of public, private and nonprofit organizations aimed at addressing the city’s affordable-housing crisis.

New Orleans’ dependence on tourism and the service industries have caused New Orleans workers to suffer even more acute housing crises since the start of the coronavirus pandemic forced the ongoing shuttering of such businesses.

Now, as federal officials continue to wrangle over extending or adding new stimulus benefits to Americans fearful of losing their homes because of pandemic-triggered unemployment, the time for dickering and hand-wringing is over, Morris said.

“I continue to be surprised at our leaders’ unwillingness to address it,” she said. “Our leaders are not responding to it. Their rhetoric doesn’t match their actions.”

According to the report, a Louisiana resident must work two full-time jobs in order to afford a modest, one-bedroom apartment at fair-market rates. That figure jumps to 2.4 full-time jobs to be able to rent a two-bedroom home.

And the New Orleans-Metairie metropolitan area is by far the most challenging in the state in which to live, with full-time workers needing to make nearly $21 an hour to afford a two-bedroom rental. That translates to 2.9 full-time jobs needed by a worker in New Orleans in order to afford a two-bedroom rental. The average two-bedroom, fair-market rental in the local metro area costs a whopping $1,078 per month, the highest in the state.

The housing crisis becomes even more pressing as several reports have been released over the last few months finding a link between someone’s habitation circumstances and their health. The worse off a resident’s housing situation is, the more it negatively impacts their health, a phenomenon exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Morris said immediate action is needed to ensure that people remain housed and healthy as 2020 crawls on.

Morris cited three areas in which state governmental and civic leaders can put forth definite action toward the crisis: the state of Louisiana should allot an additional $250 million of COVID-19 emergency funding that can be distributed and managed at the local level to help residents who became housing insecure because of the pandemic; work with federal officials establish a similar but separate fund for Louisianans who were already housing insecure before the pandemic to stabilize their housing situation; and set aside funding to help particularly vulnerable, low- or no-income citizens like the homeless, the mentally ill and prisoners being released from incarceration.

“We need to stabilize people [in terms of housing] for as long as necessary, until whenever this crisis ends,” Morris said. “It’s ambitious and bold, but it’s easy to accomplish.”

Those measures also need to factor in assistance for landlords and property owners who are facing the difficult decision of evicting renters because their pandemic unemployment and other funding is running out. Morris said property owners also need to make ends meet while being prevented from profiteering during the pandemic.

New Orleans City Council-woman Cyndi Nguyen expressed concern about the report’s findings.

“New Orleans has the highest average rent in Louisiana,” Nguyen said. “The ratio of what people earn compared to the cost of rent is way out of balance. Quality and affordable housing is a critical need for the city of New Orleans.”

The national report revealed even greater challenges for people of color, noting that “[u]nsurprisingly, Black and Latino workers face larger gaps between their wages and the cost of housing than white workers.”

The national survey stated that at the 60th income percentile, a white individual working full time can afford to rent a two-bedroom home at fair-market rent, but a full-time Black or Latino worker under the same parameters can’t afford even a one-bedroom rental.

As a result, 44 percent of Black households across the country spend more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing, while the figure for Latino households is 42 percent. Just 26 percent of white households spend more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing.

“The unaffordability of the rental market disproportionately harms Black and Latino households in two ways,” the report stated. “First … Black and Latino households earn less, which makes it more difficult to find housing affordable to them. Second, Black and Latino households are more likely at all income levels to be renters. … Historical and ongoing discrimination has limited opportunities for homeownership for many people of color, and they compete for an insufficient number of affordable rental homes available on the market.”

Morris noted that longstanding, chronic systemic racism needs to be acknowledged and stared down by the entire population.

“When you say systemic racism, it’s the failure of our leaders in this moment,” she said.

“They’ve been unable to summon the strength and political will to address [the problem].”

She added that many people “refuse to pull down the blinders to systemic racism from their eyes.”

This article originally published in the July 27, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.