Continued lack of affordable housing hinders pride, security among Virginians

Frank Hruska, executive director of Habitat for Humanity for South Hampton Roads, faces persistent problems trying to build modest homes for low- and middle-income families. Inflation has boosted the cost of housing construction. Plus, vacant, usable land has become more expensive over the years.

“We are in a perfect storm right now,” Hruska told me.

I interviewed him after his Habitat chapter announced it was postponing the application process because it hadn’t been able to acquire land for the 2025-26 building season. Applications had been scheduled to open May 1.

He said vacant lots in his region were selling for $30,000 to $35,000 in 2018. Yet they averaged $75,000 last year, Hruska said, even though the lots were about the same size and sat in school divisions with the same reputation for quality.

Hruska’s challenge isn’t unique. Other Habitat affiliates in Virginia have also postponed the application process, some for the first time in decades. Studies and statements by the General Assembly’s watchdog agency, the federal government and others speak of the longstanding problem to secure affordable housing, especially by Americans who aren’t rich.

“Land prices increased 60% from 2012-2019, and the cost of homes more than doubled from 1998 to 2021,” reported the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Just last week, The Washington Post reported the D.C. metropolitan area has fallen way behind in meeting a 2019 goal of building 320,000 units over the next decade to handle that region’s growth. “Fairfax County, the most populous jurisdiction in the region,” The Post said, “is on pace to build only 36 percent of its target.”

One obvious factor: Elected leaders there set the goal before the devastating COVID-19 pandemic occurred and shredded the economy.

Inflation, lack of developable land and the desire by builders to erect expensive houses to recoup their investments are factors in the dearth of affordable housing, both in Virginia and nationwide. Incentives for developers to build multifamily units aren’t always enough to propel construction.

“Even if they decided to be benevolent, to take a modest fee for themselves … their costs to build homes are really high,” said Erica Sims, president of Richmond-based HDAdvisors, a consulting firm specializing in affordable housing.

Builders also want to tap into water and sewer lines to help keep costs low, Sims told me. If developers have to install roads and sewer themselves, they might decline those projects.

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Virginia’s Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission – the aforementioned Assembly watchdog agency – notes what many housing and poverty advocates say: Families are “cost burdened” when they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing expenses. Such a predicament means it’s difficult for households to pay for other necessities, and it increases the likelihood of eviction.

“Approximately 29 percent of Virginia households (905,000) were housing cost burdened in 2019, and nearly half of these households spent more than 50 percent of their income on housing,” JLARC said in a 2021 report.

That means many families are just one job layoff, medical emergency or major car repair away from losing a roof over their heads. It’s a stressful way to live.

Renting a home can help families avoid the upfront costs of homebuying, JLARC noted, but the commonwealth “has a shortage of at least 200,000 affordable rental units for extremely and very low-income households.”

What are the possible solutions to this lack of affordable housing?

“It requires a heavy investment at the state and federal levels,” Sims said.

“Cities have land, and they should set some aside for affordable housing,” said Hruska. Localities that bar homes on smaller lots, he added, could alter zoning regulations to permit them.

(In August, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced $52 million in affordable and special needs housing loans for dozens of projects.)

Home ownership is important. It tends to make individuals more concerned about their neighborhoods because they have a stake in their success. A home is usually the largest monetary investment a family owns.

“We want working-class families to have the American Dream, and that way we have better neighborhoods and better citizens,” said Hruska, the local Habitat official.

Look no further than Andrew and Linda Layne, who moved into their Chesapeake Habitat home in 2018.

Andrew Layne, 59, didn’t know I was going to drop in last week to his one-story home with three bedrooms, 1½ bathrooms and roughly 1,100 square feet. Yet he was wearing a red T-shirt from the housing nonprofit when I stopped by.

That’s quite an endorsement.

“It’s the first house I’ve ever owned,” he told me.

The house rose on a former vacant lot.  A green front lawn now greets visitors. Solar panels adorn the roof.

He and his wife earlier lived in a Virginia Beach townhouse. Layne sought out Habitat after suffering a serious accident while working as a longshoreman in 2012. “I almost died,” he said, adding that he received disability payments.

The Laynes contributed hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” to the organization, including at the site of their home. The city’s redevelopment and housing authority helped fund the construction.

“It makes me a very proud person,” he said, while showing me room-by-room through the home and their cozy backyard. 

The family’s pit bull and chocolate husky barked at and sniffed me before deciding I was harmless. They then returned to their usual perches in the living room.

“Habitat is awesome,” said 54-year-old Linda Layne, who recently started a cleaning job at the year-old Rivers Casino in Portsmouth.

The nonprofit’s good works, though, can only go so far to reduce the affordable housing shortage. Roughly 3,700 families have bought homes through Habitat affiliates since the late 1970s, a state Habitat official told me.

Many more Virginians, though, want to experience the same level of belonging expressed by the Laynes.

It’s one of pride in having a home of your own.