Affordable housing is one of those things that should be accessible for everyone who needs it. Unfortunately, getting a voucher for affordable housing can be incredibly difficult .
How difficult? A Chicago alderwoman shared that she finally got her voucher from the Chicago Housing Authority nearly three decades after she applied for it, and she’s using it to call attention to housing difficulties across America.
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Jeanette Taylor first applied way back in 1993.
Taylor applied to the Chicago Housing Authority in 1993. Her application put her on a waitlist — a waitlist she stayed on for just shy of 30 years before finally getting her request for affordable housing approved.
Taylor shared the news on Twitter.
In a May 31 tweet , Taylor shared an image of the letter informing her that she was approved for affordable housing.
Of course, the approval from the Chicago Housing Authority comes a little bit late. In 1993, Taylor wanted housing for her and her young children. Her children are now adults.
Taylor views it as a systemic failure.
Considering the fact that her request for an affordable housing voucher took close to thirty years and four presidential administrations to approve, it’s hard to disagree with her assessment. Unfortunately, Taylor’s story is all too common.
She’s fighting for better access to affordable housing.
In the past few decades, innumerable condo towers and new developments have been built throughout the Chicagoland area — the same as nearly every other city. But, just like other cities, Chicago struggles to provide affordable housing for its vulnerable communities.
What’s needed is public funding, not private developers.
According to a 2021 report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, most families wait, at the bare minimum, over a year to get approval for affordable housing. As we’ve seen in Jeanette Taylor’s case, the waitlist is often much longer.
There just isn’t enough investment in affordable housing.
Taylor told a radio station that she was a 19-year-old mother of three when she applied back in 1993. She later had two more children, raising the whole brood in a one-bedroom apartment. Now that she’s an empty-nester, she’s been approved for an affordable family home.
It’s challenging for many families.
Numerous Twitter users chimed in to share their experiences with affordable housing. While the intent of affordable housing is admirable, in practice it often feels like an impossible challenge. Add extremely long waitlists to the mix and it’s easy to see why so many people see it as a broken system.
This shouldn’t happen in a developed country.
Private developers build homes and condos for profit, selling them to the highest bidder. Needless to say, most of them aren’t interested in building affordable housing unless there are subsidies to sweeten the pot.
What does the housing authority have to say?
“[Chicago Housing Authority] cannot comment on any applicant’s status for privacy reasons, but we fully agree that more resources are needed from the federal government to address the need for affordable housing in Chicago, as there has not been a significant increase in the number of vouchers available in years,” wrote a Chicago Housing Authority spokesperson in a statement to Newsweek .
Is there any end in sight?
On the surface, the answer here is simple: build more affordable housing. Unfortunately, it’s an incredibly complex problem that doesn’t seem like it’ll be fixed anytime soon.
Let us know what you think of this story, and share your experiences with affordable housing (or the housing market in general!) in the comments section.
h/t: Newsweek
