With Housing Prices Spiraling, Even Well-Paid Professionals Are Losing Their Homes—Challenging Assumptions About Who Is at Risk
It’s easy to think of homelessness as a risk only for people who are already clinging to the lowest rung of the social ladder, but that’s not the case anymore, if it ever was. Homelessness is moving on up, nipping at the heels of people with “good jobs” who make salaries well above average.
It’s tempting to think that anyone who lost their housing in this kind of situation must have severe underlying issues in their personal or financial lives. Still, in reality, no amount of budgeting or latte-skipping can outpace the rising costs of housing in the current market.
The Homeless UCLA Professor
Dr. Daniel McKeown recently went viral over a video he made explaining how he can no longer afford his apartment and has become homeless while working as an astrophysics lecturer at UCLA, where his annual salary is $70,000.
That number probably sounds appropriately astronomical to many of you, but with the housing market in Los Angeles being what it is, it’s not stretching far enough for McKeown to remain housed. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in LA is currently $2,719 per month. Without factoring in taxes or any of the other things that eat away at a paycheck, McKeown is already rent-burdened by those numbers, spending well over 30% of his monthly income on basic housing costs. McKeown has calculated that he would need a salary of 100,000 per year, giving him a take-home pay amount of about $7,000 per month to be able to afford his one-bedroom apartment.
His Story Isn’t Unique
McKeown isn’t the first person we’ve heard speaking out about being unable to afford housing while teaching at the highest levels. Even though many of these people have spent years of their lives (and thousands of their dollars) on achieving the highest levels of education, and rising tuition rates continue to pour money into these schools, the people actually teaching are being shortchanged to the point that they’re forced to live in their cars.
So the familiar refrain of “get a job” is even more out of touch than we thought. Not only do most unhoused people already have jobs, even though the deck is very much stacked against them being able to keep those jobs, but even the people who have big fancy jobs with annual salaries that would give a midwesterner heart palpitations are not immune to being priced out of housing.
Are We Just Going to Accept This?
I hope that seeing these numbers is a wake-up call for some people. Housing prices are wildly out of control in many areas of the country, and you can’t outearn them, even if you have a “good” job. That phenomenon is spreading to towns and cities across the country—it’s not going to stay contained in California.
A lot of us have become desensitized to the realities of homelessness. Maybe we’ve taken it for granted as something that’s always been an unfortunate part of society and always will be, just because we happened to be born in a time and place where it’s been allowed to run rampant.
It’s an ugly thing to admit, but for many Americans, homelessness is a lot easier to ignore when it’s “just” a poor person’s problem. Now that it’s affecting the middle classes more and more, people may start waking up to it at an increased rate.
We can’t just accept this. We shouldn’t have accepted it in the first place. Housing is a human right, and we’ve been treating it like a raffle.
Now that more affluent, more powerful people are holding the losing tickets, maybe we’ll start to care. As respected teachers, colleagues, and friends begin to lose their housing left and right, maybe the alarms will start sounding in the minds of people who had always thought they were a long way from homelessness—until now.
That realization can lead to decisive action if we let it.
We Have to Save Each Other
With the incoming administration being what it is and local governments unwilling to or unable to house their constituents on their own, it seems safe to say that no one is coming to save us any time soon. So, we’ll have to save each other as best as we can.
Getting involved with mutual aid networks in your local area will lead you toward the needs your neighbors need filled, as well as giving you an extra layer of support if you ever fall on hard times yourself. Redistributing resources through these networks can help people avoid eviction or make the difference between sleeping inside or getting stuck out in deadly weather. These networks can also help pass information about upcoming sweeps or other aggressive actions to ensure unhoused neighbors are prepared, safe, and able to reconnect with each other after displacement.
Get connected with your local tenants’ union. They can provide practical resources and support to keep people in their homes. Community is the only thing we’ll have left to rely on when all other systems fail.
If you have no idea where to start with all of this, take it in baby steps. Introduce yourself to your neighbors. Get to know the people you see often at your local library or on walks through the neighborhood. When you see someone new moving in at an apartment near your place, take a page out of your grandma’s cookbook and welcome them by dropping off some baked goods. While online communities have their uses and can be a necessary breath of fresh air for people who feel out of place in their local areas, there really is no substitute for a healthy local community that can meet each other’s needs on the ground in real-time.
