Rob Pryor, programs manager at the Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana, and Latravia Benson, program manager at Jeffersonville Housing Authority, were among those ready in this 2021 photo to help residents with applications for rental assistance and other services. News and Tribune file photo
SOUTHERN INDIANA — Housing is a necessity for all but finding a place to call home can be a struggle for some.
Affordable housing helps those who need a place to live. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines affordable housing as housing on which the occupant is paying no more than 30% of gross income for housing costs, including utilities.
The state of affordable housing has improved in Southern Indiana as far as home ownership goes, said Barb Anderson, Haven House’s executive director. But she has concerns about affordable housing for those who are renting.
Part of the problem is for people who make below the living wage to be able to pay rent. For a family with both parents working and two children, the parents would each have to make $22.40 an hour, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage Calculator.
Another problem is landlords in the area have started checking to determine if renters have been evicted from previous homes.
“When you’re making $12 an hour and the rent is $1,300 a month, there’s probably been an eviction on the record,” Anderson said. “The fact of the matter is, subsidized housing needs to be on the increase, not the decrease.”
Subsidized housing is when the government pays apartment owners to offer reduced rent to tenants with low incomes.
There are public housing authorities in Clark and Floyd counties that offer places for those who need affordable housing, though they have waiting lists making it difficult for people to get housing quickly, Anderson said.
“All the public housing authorities have waiting lists,” Anderson said. “It’s not like you’re going to get in tomorrow in New Albany or Jeffersonville. The only thing that doesn’t have very many waiting lists are the elderly housing units.”
Jayson Rundall, a local real estate agent, said that one of the barriers for renters is the deposit for their apartment. The deposit is often equal to a month’s rent.
“I think a lot of people just don’t know where to look,” Rundall said. “They don’t know where to start (when looking for affordable housing). The consensus is that rents are too high.”
To find direction when looking for affordable housing or needing help, Rundall recommends people go to a local real estate agent to discuss options for affordable housing or to Anderson at Haven House, which is in Quartermaster Station in Jeffersonville.
Township trustees can sometimes also help people with their rent by covering up to half of the cost.
“I think the rents have hit their ceiling,” Rundall said. “I do believe you’ll start to notice rents come down just a trickle, not that much.”
One thing that could make affordable housing more available is by indexing the cost of housing to the average wages in communities, Anderson said, to ensure renters are not charged more than 30% of their annual income for housing.
“No one can tell me the average wage in this community is $21 an hour,” Anderson said. “If we looked at the average wage, it would probably be closer to $13 to $14 an hour and it should be indexed to that.”
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