It's Time to Take a Stand for Affordable Housing

February 28, 2018                            By:  Stephen Whyte

Remember Archie Bunker? Not really? That’s ok – it’s an old reference. Archie Bunker was the protagonist of the hit 70s sitcom “All in the Family.” As the name implies, he was a family man – hard working, gruff, charming and bigoted in a way that wouldn’t fly on television today.

But that’s not the only thing about Archie that doesn’t stand the test of time. Because in the 1970s, on his salary as a New York loading dock foreman, Archie and his family rented a home in Flushing, Queens. In today’s world, that math doesn’t work. Archie would earn a salary of roughly $50,000 per year – enough to realistically afford a rent of about $1,250 per month. The Bunker’s home would rent for at least twice that. And don’t get me started on the rent-controlled fantasies of “Friends” or “Seinfeld.”

That’s a lot of talk about long-gone television, but it demonstrates a very real problem. A nationwide crisis that, in my 25 years in affordable housing development, I have seen grow from a conversation into a full-blown national crisis........Read More