Got Housing?
Just last week, the Projo reported that the Rhode Island economy is "stagnant" and will continue to idle for months to come, perhaps through December. The paper said that companies are not hiring, and rising energy prices mean a reduced demand for goods, prompting factories and stores to operate shorter shifts.The elevated cost of energy reportedly has a double effect: it increases "the cost of production,which slows the economy, while raising the Consumer Price Index, which leads to inflation." (Lynn Arditi, "Index Predicts a Stagnant Rhode Island Economy, Providence Journal, May 17, 2005). This represents the third consecutive quarter of economic decline in the Ocean State.
Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to rise. For US workers living in the North East, the urban consumer price index (CPI) increased by exactly 7% from December 2003 to December 2004, and continued to rise by 4% during the first four months of 2005. (US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, available at http://www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm) The CPI represents the cost of acquiring food, housing, medical care, transportation, apparel, education, etc. The CPI for urban consumers reflects the situation of about 87% of the US population.
As every tenant knows, rents in Providence are rising rapidly, and this is true elsewhere in New England as well. Three New England states, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire are among the ten least affordable states for renters, with Massachusetts just behind California as the worst state for renters in the nation. It costs more to rent an apartment in the Boston metropolitan area (including southern New Hampshire) than in Westchester county, or Nassau county, in New York. (See the data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition at http://www.nlihc.org) Unbelievably high and rising housing costs in Boston are attracting speculators (aka landlords) to the Providence housing market, and Providence renters are the ones who get hurt in this situation.
Based on last year's figures (the latest available), a service sector employee making little more than $18,000 a year, could come up with only a little more than half the fair market rent for a two bedroom unit in Rhode Island for her family, while an SSI recipient who was willing to spend her entire monthly check of $621 on rent, would still be $100 short of the money required to keep a one-bedroom unit in this state at fair market price. "In Rhode Island, a worker earning the Minimum Wage ($6.75 per hour) must work 97 hours per week in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the area's Fair Market rent. The Housing Wage in Rhode Island is $16.29. This is the amount a full time (40 hours per week) worker must earn per hour in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the area's Fair Market rent" (from "Out of Reach," the NLIHC report on the plight of families who rent in the US).
In other words, many of us just do not have the money that it takes to live here. We work hard, and we still fall short. Since renters constitute 40% of the population of the Providence-Fall River-Warwick area, this is a serious problem for a lot of people, and one would have thought that politicians, of whom Providence has so many, would have taken some action to alleviate the plight of renters, but no! The only two politicians who even mentioned housing since the last election, a Democrat and a Green, endorsed "development," which means even higher rents, and called for Providence to emulate Boston, where a two-bedroom can cost $2,500 per month and a condo in a dangerous neighborhood like Cambridgeport fetches $299,000.
Politicians who do not care about the needs of working families must be replaced. The Democrats and the Greens ignore the problems of wage earners, so it is time for us to build our own party, a party of, by and for workers. Our workers party will fight for full employment and housing, for a massive program of public works to rebuild infrastructure in Rhode Island and provide quality housing for everyone. Join us!
Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to rise. For US workers living in the North East, the urban consumer price index (CPI) increased by exactly 7% from December 2003 to December 2004, and continued to rise by 4% during the first four months of 2005. (US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, available at http://www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm) The CPI represents the cost of acquiring food, housing, medical care, transportation, apparel, education, etc. The CPI for urban consumers reflects the situation of about 87% of the US population.
As every tenant knows, rents in Providence are rising rapidly, and this is true elsewhere in New England as well. Three New England states, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire are among the ten least affordable states for renters, with Massachusetts just behind California as the worst state for renters in the nation. It costs more to rent an apartment in the Boston metropolitan area (including southern New Hampshire) than in Westchester county, or Nassau county, in New York. (See the data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition at http://www.nlihc.org) Unbelievably high and rising housing costs in Boston are attracting speculators (aka landlords) to the Providence housing market, and Providence renters are the ones who get hurt in this situation.
Based on last year's figures (the latest available), a service sector employee making little more than $18,000 a year, could come up with only a little more than half the fair market rent for a two bedroom unit in Rhode Island for her family, while an SSI recipient who was willing to spend her entire monthly check of $621 on rent, would still be $100 short of the money required to keep a one-bedroom unit in this state at fair market price. "In Rhode Island, a worker earning the Minimum Wage ($6.75 per hour) must work 97 hours per week in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the area's Fair Market rent. The Housing Wage in Rhode Island is $16.29. This is the amount a full time (40 hours per week) worker must earn per hour in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the area's Fair Market rent" (from "Out of Reach," the NLIHC report on the plight of families who rent in the US).
In other words, many of us just do not have the money that it takes to live here. We work hard, and we still fall short. Since renters constitute 40% of the population of the Providence-Fall River-Warwick area, this is a serious problem for a lot of people, and one would have thought that politicians, of whom Providence has so many, would have taken some action to alleviate the plight of renters, but no! The only two politicians who even mentioned housing since the last election, a Democrat and a Green, endorsed "development," which means even higher rents, and called for Providence to emulate Boston, where a two-bedroom can cost $2,500 per month and a condo in a dangerous neighborhood like Cambridgeport fetches $299,000.
Politicians who do not care about the needs of working families must be replaced. The Democrats and the Greens ignore the problems of wage earners, so it is time for us to build our own party, a party of, by and for workers. Our workers party will fight for full employment and housing, for a massive program of public works to rebuild infrastructure in Rhode Island and provide quality housing for everyone. Join us!
posted by Yosef Mikhah @ 4:47 PM
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