8/2006

Workforce Housing Near the Top of The Business Agenda in Many Communities

By Mike Seabolt, Executive Vice President, NCDS

From San Francisco to Richmond, VA, communities across the nation are becoming more mindful of the need to create affordable housing for working families in lower-paying service jobs, and middle-income public service professions, such as police men and women, nurses, teachers and firefighters. Once considered the province of non-profit or social services, affordable housing is rapidly becoming an important issue to business and economic development forces.

Coalitions are forming across the country to address, or pre-empt the problem of workforce housing.

The lack of affordable workforce housing is particularly apparent in major metropolitan areas and swanky tourism and resort destinations. Employers have begun to realize the ramifications of affordable housing on employment and economic development including: recruitment, retention and productivity. Industries that service tourism, for instance, are finding that their employees must live farther and farther from their employment site in order to afford housing. Long commutes, and rising fuel prices, are “fueling” the problem resulting in higher turnover, employee dissatisfaction, and additional training and recruiting costs. Employees in the public service professions – otherwise known as “Hero Workers” – the firefighters, police, teachers, and nurses cannot afford to live in the communities they serve. According to a report on “Housing for Heroes,” by the National Association of Homebuilders , “heroes working in central cities have less than a one-in-three chance of finding a home that they can afford.” The same report suggests that Hero Workers in the suburbs of the nation’s 25 largest cities are even less likely to afford homes in the areas they serve.

City and county councils, homebuilders, realtors, major employers, economic developers, and chambers of commerce are uniting to tackle the issue, but first they must grasp the bottom-line threats to business. Despite the recent awareness of the affordable/workforce housing problem, quantitative data undeniably proves the cost to business is still lacking. Even in the absence of demonstrative statistics, many communities have taken the common-sense route and begun to address the problem.

Greta Harris, senior program director of the Virginia office of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a twenty-five year old national non-profit, maintains that affordable housing in her area is part of an economic regional agenda. “Localities trying to attract or retain business are investing in their communities,” said Harris. “Business looks at a variety of factors including whether their labor force can find quality, affordable housing. Access to housing also increases the stability of the labor force. Business has a vested interest in the well-being of a community,” she added.

Assisted by two NCDS fundraising campaigns, Ms. Harris’ organization has created over 2,700 homes and apartments, along with close to 340,000 square feet of commercial space, for a total investment of $62 million of LISC resources that have leveraged over $200 million of additional public and private resources, but Ms. Harris professes that good housing alone does not create good neighborhoods. “Good neighborhoods require other community assets,” says Harris. “Parks, childcare, and good schools are also important. Public transportation is also a critical piece,” she added.

LISC employs a holistic approach to the physical transformation of neighborhoods in urban, suburban, and rural communities, with the goal of transforming and rebuilding neighborhoods into healthy, sustainable communities for people to live, work, and play. LISC attempts to create safe housing choices by “leveling the playing field,” says Harris. “Housing is a basic human need, and our goal is to create affordable housing irrespective of income through financial, political, and technical support.”

Harris also believes it is important to society to have mixed income housing, which she says benefits everyone when it achieves diversity along racial, economic and social lines. “Studies show that when a community has an area of concentrated poverty, with vacant structures, inadequate housing, and poor performing schools, the crime that comes along with it is not contained. It spills over to a wider footprint,” said Harris. “We as a society need to see that more of our neighbors have access to good choices. In order to achieve this, communities must have the political will,” she added.

Can your community benefit from a workforce-affordable housing initiative? Perhaps your local Chamber of Commerce can help.

The Center for Workforce Preparation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University held a national leadership forum, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to assess the problem, then followed up with a published report on their findings (Strengthening our communities and workforce through housing solutions: Read a 50 page report on making the connection…Housing and Workforce development).

The Executive Summary of the report suggests that the Center for Workforce Preparation, in tandem with local chambers of commerce, can influence collaboration between local chambers and the housing community at large. “It can do so by spreading the word regarding the workforce housing efforts of its chambers in places such as Chapel Hill-Carrboro, San Diego, San Francisco, and Sarasota. It can provide opportunities for communication among chamber members nationwide, and it can convene forums that bring the housing and business communities together. The Center for Workforce Preparation (CWP) can also solicit funding and research partnerships to secure the tools, information, and resources that are needed to support collaborative initiatives that will emerge as a result of such efforts. In addition, the CWP can work through the U.S. Chamber over time to help to build the momentum for national, state, and local policies that will promote workforce housing affordability.”

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Related Links
U.S. Chamber: Workforce Housing: Chambers and Realtors Building Retention Solutions for Business

PPT: The Business Stake in Workforce Housing: The Key to a Strong Workforce.

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)