I got a call from my sister on Saturday, and learned that my brother-in-law has been scheduled for a hip replacement. He’s been in pain for quite some time now, but lately things have gotten bad enough where he’s decided to have surgery.
My sister talked him into changing his diet, to see if that would help. Apparently it didn’t.
No one really knows why this or that person ends up needing a hip replacement. We might assume the problem resulted from certain lifestyle choices. Stress, perhaps? Unhealthy eating habits? Too many years playing racquetball? Too many years at a desk job? Genetics?
Maybe it’s a combination of ‘all of the above…’ Or merely ‘a natural result of old age…’
One thing we know. Medical experts rarely agree on the root cause of a complex medical condition. They sometimes agree on the treatment.
We also assume that a severe problem doesn’t typically appear suddenly, but rather has been getting gradually, imperceptibly, worse and worse – perhaps over a very long period of time. The problem might have first been noticed as a harmless twitch, an occasional mild ache. But finally… at long last… well, you gotta have the surgery.
The folks who study housing issues, here in America, rarely agree on the root causes. But we might be able to agree that we’re ready for the surgery. I’m not a doctor or a scientist, but I have my own theories about why working class families who relocate to Pagosa Springs find very few affordable housing options in 2019. The causes include:
1. Decades of marketing effort — by business and local government — promoting Pagosa Springs as an idyllic vacation paradise… which has created a lop-sided tourism economy that pays low, hospitality-industry wages, while attracting high-end second-home investment… resulting in several thousand homes that are used only a few weeks per year.
2. Pagosa’s attractiveness as a retirement choice for couples with comfortable pension incomes… who were able to pay top dollar for their retirement homes.
3. Decisions by our local governments to approve land use regulations aimed at creating middle class neighborhoods — in a community that’s watching its middle class disappear.
4. A local construction industry decimated during the Great Recession, the remainder of which is currently focused on high-end, high-profit homes for second-home investors and retirees.
5. The explosive growth of the vacation rental industry, which has removed hundreds of homes from the potential long-term rental market.
Those are a few of the root causes that may have contributed to our current crisis, viewed from a local perspective. Some of these causes could be addressed by local residents, businesses and governments; some cannot.
There are also root causes defined by our national economy and politics.
1. A national economy built upon the existence of a thriving middle class, during a time when the middle class is disappearing.
2. A national economy that’s seeing increasing consolidation of wealth by an increasingly smaller segment of society.
3. A popular national belief that poor folks are living ‘on the dole’ because they’re lazy and don’t want to work.
4. A debt-based lifestyle, for government, business, students and families, with no visible light at the end of the tunnel.
And perhaps most importantly…
5. A leveling of the global economy. The US once lived high on the international hog, as the number one global leader in industry, agriculture, medicine, and technology. We’re now just another debt-burdened nation among many… with fewer advantages than we once had, and with an overpriced health care system, a mass incarceration problem, struggling schools, and lots of political polarization.
At public discussions of Archuleta County’s housing crisis, I’ve heard intelligent folks claim that we don’t really have a housing crisis at all. The problem is, instead, that our employers pay low wages, and it’s the insufficient wages — not the housing costs — that are the root of the problem. If only employers would pay higher wages, we’d be just fine.
If only life were so simple.
As we’ve watched the Pagosa Springs housing crisis deepen over the past five years or so — since the Great Recession ‘ended’ — some community leaders have been content to assume that the Real Estate Market will self-correct, all of its own accord. They want to believe that, if there’s sufficient demand, the capitalist system will step up and fill the need. No need for governments or employers to become involved. Pagosa Springs will magically find a healthy balance.
If only life were so simple.
The reality is —in my humble opinion — it’s time for surgery. We will never know exactly what combination of diet or lifestyle choices or ‘natural process of growing old’ may have created our complex housing problem. But the pain is getting worse.
Problem is, only certain people in the community are feeling the pain.
At yesterday’s joint Town-County work session, the staff of Pagosa Housing Partner once again summarized their 54-page community “Roadmap to Affordable Housing, 2019-2015.” The solutions proposed are similar to solutions being attempted in other Colorado cities and towns. Most of the solutions require us to think, and act, ‘outside the standard Pagosa box.’ Deed-restricted housing. Donations of publicly-owned land. The encouragement of ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units.) Education programs. Mortgage assistance.
But very few of the proposed solutions sound, to me, like surgery. Maybe the pain isn’t bad enough yet?
The PHP presentation yesterday followed a brief presentation by the Archuleta County Housing Authority, a quasi-governmental agency that has been operating the modest Casa de los Arcos senior housing complex for the past 30 years. ACHA is currently working with Bill Simpson, an out-of-town developer, on a pending LIHTC (Low Income Housing Tax Credit) application. ACHA has been granted a long-term lease on 2.5 County-government-owned acres on Hot Springs Boulevard, and is proposing to build a 30-40 unit apartment complex that will — according to preliminary plans — be very attractive and durable, and house individuals and families at the low end of the economic spectrum.
Folks living on 30-60 percent of the Archuleta County AMI. (Area Median Income.) The official AMI is around $54,000, so these would be families and individuals living on as little as $16,000 a year. Rents might be in the $600-$900 a month range.
A LIHTC project provides tax credits for wealthy investors, if they’re willing to invest in low-income housing projects. The investors take their profits in the form of less money paid to the IRS.
Once upon a time, we assumed that everyone deserved a home, however modest. Once upon a time, ordinary families built their own homes with their own hands — assisted by their neighbors and friends. Today, a “home” has become a financial instrument, expected to provide profits to banks, mortgage companies and investors. The more profits, the better.
Time for some surgery.