One out of four Philadelphia households routinely struggles to meet rising residential costs, according to a study released yesterday by two Penn researchers.
The report, "Closing the Gap: Housing (Un)Affordability in Philadelphia," focused on households earning $20,000 or less -- roughly 35 percent of all the households in Philadelphia -- and determined that the city lacks at least 30,000 units of affordable housing. Because of this, 70 percent of poor households spend more than 30 percent of their income on shelter, the amount that the federal government has deemed the appropriate ratio.
"Our primary goal was to document what has been occurring and then to help frame a basis for policy discussion and what some advocacy groups can undertake," said Dennis Culhane, a School of Social Work professor and co-director of the Cartographic Modeling Lab who co-authored the study. "In my view, it is the public policy issue begging for attention."
"It shows the housing crisis continues to worsen in the city," Culhane said. "The number of poor people continues to increase. The affordability gap is getting wider, but we were not surprised by that."
What Culhane feels is frustrating about the situation in Philadelphia in particular is that there is not a deficiency in the number of housing units.
"The irony in Philly is that we have the housing," Culhane said. "We have housing, but it is abandoned and vacant since landlords cannot earn an income or even cover costs because the income [of the people in the housing market] is so low."
The study, initiated and funded by the Philadelphia Affordable Housing Coalition, is an update of a similar study that was conducted in Philadelphia in 1988 at the Philadelphia Public Interest Law Center.
The two dynamics that have contributed to the lack of affordable housing have not changed since then, according to Culhane.
"The cost of housing continues to go up," Culhane said. "In fact, it has been going up faster than the overall rate of inflation, whereas incomes among the bottom fifth of the population have been losing ground to inflation. Thus, the lower income people have less and less income, but their housing costs more and more."
According to Culhane, the problem rests in wage level. To this end, Culhane said it is "very difficult for cities to be the mechanism to respond to this" and that attaining a living wage "is something that calls for state or federal attention."
In Philadelphia, minimum wage is $5.15 per hour, consistent with the national level. According to the report, however, for households to afford the median gross rent, the minimum wage would need to rise to $10.94 per hour.
"Either minimum wage has to be scheduled to increase over time to make up for its loss against inflation... or people have to get tax credit or housing subsidies or some combination of the two," Culhane said. In terms of financing such a proposal, he admitted that "in no case is it cost-free."
"The issue is how to distribute the cost with the least greatest impact," he added.
According to Amy Hillier, a research associate with the Cartographic Modeling Lab and the study's second author, the federal government has performed similar studies that have come to the same conclusions, but action has yet to be taken.
"Hopefully, our [report] will get attention by local politicians," Hillier said.
Although both Culhane and Hillier acknowledge that an effective solution would have to stem from the implementation of new government policy, Hillier feels that Penn can contribute despite the fact that "the scope of the problem is well beyond the scope of the University."
"I would say that since there is a University of Pennsylvania here that supports quality research, [it] shows how important academics are for advocacy," Hillier said. "Researchers have a real role to play in collaborating with community groups."
Organizations such as the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, a Philadelphia social advocacy group, routinely perform takeovers of abandoned housing, an illegal form of protest. But Culhane emphasized the need for the federal government to intervene if the situation is to see real changes and noticeable results.
"All those efforts by community groups are important but as yet, have been unsuccessful. There is no or little national political interest on this issue. Unfortunately, it is looking like more of those grassroots things will have to happen or there will have to be some better leadership in Washington."
