(6/2019) One of the most important issues facing our county is the need for more affordable workforce housing. For many in Adams County affordable housing is seemingly not a pressing problem. After all, according to the U.S. Census the annual median income for households in Adams County is nearly $62,000. That sounds pretty good for Adams County until you realize more than 8,000 families live below the poverty level.

Right now 20% of our community is struggling to find affordable housing. All of us know people driving further and further away to work, so that they can afford to live here. Or worse we know people settling for substandard housing or leaving the area for greener pastures. We need to change this trend for many reasons. I am proud to say that area leaders are stepping up to find solutions to this pressing issue.

In 2018 a new group of local businesses, faith-based organizations, schools, social service, and healthcare providers decided to form a new coalition, @Home in Adams County. This group is no longer accepting that only housing entities, such as the Adams County Housing Authority, SCCAP, Habitat for Humanity, or local government are responsible to finding a solution to the quickly growing lack of affordable workforce housing. Actually, @Home in Adams County was not the first step, for that we need to rewind three years to a study funding and completed by the Adams County Community Foundation (ACCF).

In 2016 Barbara Ernico, the president of the ACCF, had a great challenge. The community foundation had unrestricted investment funds available to begin addressing largescale community needs. While the ACCF has always had donor funds for specific projects, such as improving healthcare, fighting hunger, community projects and funding many other items, these funds were unrestricted. Mrs. Ernico wanted to make sure that as a community we first determined the top issues facing Adams County and then develop a plan to solve them. To this end the ACCF with additional funding from Adams County and Wellspan hired a consultant to perform a community needs assessment. From this study three specific and interrelated issues were defined as most significant in Adams County. They were, a severe shortage of affordable housing, a lack of transportation options, and stagnant wages across Adams County.

Based on those assessment results, the Adams County Community Foundation released and awarded a Request for Proposals for an organization to coordinate the @Home In Adams County initiative, providing funding for a staff person for three years. This seed funding allows @Home in Adams County to build an effective infrastructure to pull together partners, constituents, and additional funding partners so that together we can tackle the biggest issues facing Adams County residents.

Most of us know what unaffordable housing feels like or looks like, but sometimes it helps to have some data to back up the reality. The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s (NLIHC) 2018 "Out of Reach" report documents the gap between renters’ wages and the cost of rental housing. The report lists a housing wage or the hourly wage that a full-time worker must earn to afford a modest rental home without spending more than 30% of his or her income on housing costs. Thirty percent is considered the benchmark for defining what is affordable housing. This is also a good benchmark for owning a home, but for now let’s just focus on rental housing. The report also utilizes HUD’s Fair Market Rent (FMR), which is an estimate of what a family moving today can expect to pay for a modest rental home in the area.

In Adams County the FMR for a two-bedroom apartment is $970 with the housing wage at $18.08 per hour or $37,600 annually. In Adams County the report estimates the average renter earns $10.30 per hour. This means, using the 30% threshold, the worker could afford rent of $536 per month. In order for a single person to afford a two-person apartment they would need to work 70 hours every week. In Adams County more than 44% of all renters are paying more than 30% of their income towards rent. Even with two wage earners, there is not a large amount of margin for error in this equation. Many families are one emergency, illness, or car breakdown away from losing their housing.

So what about those government programs we hear about for low-income people. According to the NLIHC, on a national level, only one in four households who qualify for housing assistance receive it. At the Adams County Housing Authority and Pa. Interfaith Community Program, who oversee most of these housing subsidy programs, they are seeing similar trends in Adams County and all of their subsidized and affordable housing programs have waiting lists.

Now, rewind a few paragraphs to the beginning of this article to the groups engaged in this attempt to solve our workforce housing crisis. One group that stands out to me is business. Up until recently many of us saw the problem of affordable housing as housing agency’s concerns, but where do these tenants and homeowners work? This is why we all need to be concerned, we are losing our workers because they can’t afford to live here. If we lose businesses, or new businesses fail to locate here due to workforce shortages, we begin to lose more than just the business.

Affordable workforce housing supports our tax base, both intrinsically in the value of the house and through the property value of the employee’s business. Without workers, business doesn’t work. The expression "build it and they will come", is not good business advice. Businesses locate or expand in areas where there is a workforce for their industry. Without a strong and growing business base, homeowners will bear the brunt of the tax burden.

Affordable workforce housing creates better neighborhoods. When employees can afford to live and work in the same community, instead of spending an average of 40 minutes commuting (based upon a 2018 Adams County office of Planning and Development report), they are able to attend their children’s sporting events, walk in their neighborhoods, and become more connected to their community.

Affordable workforce housing creates stronger families. While this may seem obvious, it really can’t be overstated how important it is for parents to be home with their children. Earlier I mentioned the cost of rental housing versus the average wage for renters. Single parents and two-parent families often have to work extra just to afford their homes. This means that children are left without parental guidance. As a county commissioner I could write an entire article about how this issue alone drives much of our budget and your taxes. It is tough to balance the time necessary to both provide a house for a family and really create a home for that family.

If I leave you with one thought, please remember that affordable housing is not just a low income problem, this is about all of us. Creating more affordable workforce housing affects us all, and I am proud that such a strong community group has formed to address these concerns. In the coming months and years expect to hear more about this and if you have any question please reach out to me at mqually@adamscounty.us or 717-339-6514.