Advocates: Safe, affordable housing for seniors lacking in Michigan

LANSING — A large gap exists between the need for safe, affordable housing for older adults and their availability.

The state is short 204,728 rental homes that are affordable for extremely low-income renters, according to the 2021 Michigan Housing Profile published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

And there are only 35 affordable and available rental units for every 100 extremely low-income renters. Michigan ranks 13th in the nation for unavailable affordable housing, according to a report from the housing coalition.

“Waiting lists for senior subsidized properties are long, and long waits for open housing units are common,” said Katie Bach, the communications director for the Michigan State Housing Development Authority.

It’s the biggest problem for Michigan Medicine’s Housing Bureau for Seniors in Washtenaw County.

Each year, the bureau receives 300 to 500 phone calls from seniors looking for stable housing.

“We are seeing more calls lately of older adults saying, ‘They’re raising my rent, I can’t afford it anymore,’” said Janet Hunko, the director of the agency.

Senate Democrats recently reintroduced bills that would limit rents and allow local governments to enact rent control measures on privately owned rentals.

“Local governments need the flexibility to be able to innovate in their housing policies to ensure that all of their residents have access to affordable or attainable housing,” said Rep. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit.

Affordable housing as defined in the legislation means that seniors, with some restrictions, would pay no more than 30% of their gross annual income in rent.

Much more needs to be done to address Michigan’s affordable housing needs, advocates said.

“We want people to be aware of the lack of affordable, truly affordable housing,” Hunko said. “It’s going to take a lot to get where we need to — if we can ever get there.”

Michigan is not alone.

“There’s no community or state in the country that has an adequate supply of housing that’s affordable for extremely low-income renters,” said Andrew Aurand, the vice president for research at the coalition. “And we also know that about a third of extremely low-income renters are seniors.”

Extremely low-income renters have income at or below the federal poverty level of $12,880 per year for a single person or 30% of the median area income, which varies county to county.

Income for older adults has remained somewhat flat over the past few years, Bach said. But rental prices have not.

In the Detroit Metro area, RealPage, a property management company, found that rent prices were up 7.4% from last year. Rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Ann Arbor has also increased from $1,124 in 2020 to $1,264 a month in 2021 — a 12.46% increase, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In a recent study, the Ann Arbor Community Foundation determined that average rent for a subsidized one-bedroom apartment in Washtenaw County is $867 a month.

That’s way too high, said Yvonne Cudney, a community outreach and education coordinator at the housing bureau.

“Fifty-three percent of our seniors are cost-burdened,” Cudney said. A cost-burdened person spends more than 30% of their income on rent.

It is unrealistic for seniors at 100% of the federal poverty level and with a fixed income of $1,073 a month, to pay rent of $867. “They’re not going to make it,” she said.

The ones who can’t make it end up staying with family, on friends’ couches or homeless, Cudney said.

This year, 35% of the population that the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County is seeing are 55 years old and older, said Sarah Paspal-Jasinski, its development director.

While the majority of shelters in the nation have a "housing first" mentality, the Washtenaw shelter keeps people in its residential housing program until underlying conditions are stabilized, such as complex medical and mental health needs, Paspal-Jasinski said. Only then does the shelter place them in affordable housing.

“It would be foolish to just immediately put someone into housing without addressing their other underlying needs,” she said. “Because if we did that, they wouldn’t be able to sustain or maintain their housing, and then they’d be going back through the shelter process.”

The state is aware of the senior housing shortage.

The department is selecting a vendor to assess the greatest housing needs for older residents.

“We will be using the results of the study to inform policy around senior housing, both in terms of homeownership as well as rental,” Bach said.

But housing advocates want to know what can be done now for seniors in need of homes. “Housing is a human right,” Paspal-Jenkins said.

“We hopefully catch them before they become homeless, but we are seeing more and more who are literally living either on the streets or in their cars,” Hunko said.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Advocates: Safe, affordable housing for seniors lacking in Michigan