Thread by @mateosfo

One weird thing that happens if you have a movement that opposes building homes "for rich people" year in and year out:

Eventually, those "rich people" qualify for housing subsidies. Here's a not-super-detailed-but-hopefully-pretty-accurate thread on "area median income."

"Affordable housing" means different things to different people, but to housers, it generally means "subsidized housing:" Homes where residents pay rent equivalent to what they can afford -- about 30% of income. The government subsidizes the rest.

The key: How much income?

To figure this out, the state keeps track of "area median income" (AMI), which is exactly what it sounds like. People who earn up to 120% of AMI can often qualify for subsidized housing.

So, if AMI is $50k, then you can often get housing subsidies if you earn up to $60k.

But what happens if you stop building enough homes "for rich people"? A couple things. First, tons of people earning less than 120% of AMI are priced out of market, and leave.

But tons stay. What that does: Drives up area median incomes. Because more lower-income people leave.

An example: Median income in Alameda County, home to Oakland & Berkeley, is now $125,000. That's a lot of money!

But because we don't build enough homes "for rich people," a single person earning "moderate" income of $105,000 qualifies for housing subsidies.

Wait ... WHAT?!?!

Yep: It gets weirder. Are you a family of four in Alameda County? If your "moderate" household income is ~ $150,000, you ALSO qualify for housing subsidies.

NBD. Family of four in Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara could earn $180,000 & qualify for subsidized housing.

The basic principle is, choking off the supply of housing "for rich people" *does not choke off the supply of rich people.* It just pushes up median incomes, which means an ever-richer slice of the population will qualify for housing subsidies.

And because rich people require fewer subsidies than very-low-income people, all this does is worsen the plight of very-low and low-income people, who typically face 5 to 10-year waitlists for housing that is affordable to them at 30% of income.

We obviously need to build the maximum number of units of very-low and low-income housing because our neighbors in those income brackets are on the precipice, if they haven't been pushed over already.

But blocking homes "for rich people" is utterly cruel *to low-income people.*

By growing the pool of people who qualify for housing subsidies into ever-rising income bands, we're diluting those subsidies for the people who need them the most. There is not an endless supply of housing subsidies.

If you'd like to figure out how this works, the state publishes all of its income data and methodology; the 2021 income limits came out last week: hcd.ca.gov/grants-funding…