The nature of free enterprise is that entrepreneurial motivated people or organizations identify a problem. Then the entrepreneur provides a service and/or product that addresses the need.
Done properly, free enterprise yields a solution for those served that also yields a profit for those serving the needed.
Against that backdrop, manufactured housing is in an odd-conundrum.
A powerful and practical solution to the affordable housing crisis is already known. Yet, the robust use of manufactured housing is being blocked or inhibited by a variety of factors.
Facts About Desmond’s Research on the Need for Affordable Housing
Sociologist Matthew Desmond wrote a Pulitzer Prize–winning book “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.” Desmond is now a professor at Harvard. In an interview with Clare Trapasso, senior news editor of Realtor.com, he talked about what his research revealed about the impact of affordable housing on Americans.
What manufactured housing investors and professionals ought to consider is that the data and evidence presented by a researcher may be subject to multiple interpretations – and possible solutions.
Some key parts of Trapasso’s interview with Desmond are presented that provides his research revelations. Observations by MHProNews about the “Evicted” author’s research will follow.
Desmond told Trapasso that “The book [Evicted] shows the difficulty of reaching some sort of financial stability without a stable, affordable home. Housing is just so central to the lives of all of us.”
Trapasso asked, “What were your biggest takeaways?”
Desmond answered that, “The evidence is overwhelming that eviction isn’t just a condition of poverty. It’s a cause of it.
If you look at the data, you see women, especially low-income, African-American women, are evicted at incredibly high rates. In Milwaukee, among renters, 1 in 5 black women is evicted at some point in her life. It was 1 in 15 for white women renters.
That’s when I began thinking of eviction as the feminine equivalent of incarceration. The face of our eviction epidemic is mothers with children. And it’s especially pronounced in low-income communities of color.
I had no idea that evictions were so prevalent. You crunch the numbers, and you see that 1 in 8 renters in Milwaukee is displaced once every two years. New York City sees 60 marshal evictions every day. I didn’t expect eviction to be such a force in people’s lives and [create] so much fallout.”
Realtor’s editor asked, “How important is housing, particularly to lower-income Americans?
Desmond replied, “It’s foundational. Without stable, affordable shelter, everything else falls apart.
Most Americans think the typical low-income family lives in public housing. But the opposite is true.
Today, only about 1 in 4 families who qualify for public housing [receives it]. Instead, 1 in 4 poor, renting families are spending 70% of their income just on rent and utilities.
One thing Arleen [the mother who was evicted before Christmas] did, once her housing situation finally got stabilized years later, was she started applying for jobs. The thing she was most proud of was, her youngest son could go to the same school for several years. She wants to thrive and work and contribute, and she wants the best for her sons.”
What Was Overlooked…
As was previously reported in the Daily Business News, a study published and spotlighted late in the Obama Administration made the point that the economic cost to the economy for not making affordable housing more available was estimated to be $1.95 trillion dollars annually.
MHProNews has also promoted ‘two important laws’ already on the books that could yield private enterprise solutions to the kinds of problems that could yield significant growth in sales at the local market level for retailers and communities, while providing would be affordable home seekers the opportunity for personal wealth creation.
There is no need to delay the implementation of the solutions that manufactured housing already provides to some 22 million Americans. The laws noted are the law already. What is needed is the skill and the will to promote and advance this on the local market level. ## (News, analysis, and commentary.)
Related:
YIMBY vs. NIMBY, Obama Admin Concept Could Unlock $1.95 Trillion Annually, HUD & MH Impact
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Soheyla is a managing member of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
