INEQUITY REVEALED

HOMEOWNERSHIP AND HEALTHY LIVING GAPS ONCE IDENTIFIED BY ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE PROVEN THROUGH FINE-GRADE DATA

Kyoko Matsumoto Wright is a REALTOR with Coldwell Banker Bain and mayor of 

Mountlake Terrace, a Snohomish County bedroom community of about 20,000 people located 13 miles from Seattle.

 

In her position as mayor and in her job as a marketer of homes, Matsumoto Wright is seeing numbers that are pricing people out of housing. 

Before interest rates rose, it was not uncommon to see residential listings selling for more than $200,000 over the asking price. 

She sold a relatively modest home, listed at $615,000, for $807,000. 

While those stats look great for sellers and their REALTORS, Matsumoto Wright is gravely concerned.

INEQUITY REVEALED

HOMEOWNERSHIP AND HEALTHY LIVING GAPS ONCE IDENTIFIED BY ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE PROVEN THROUGH FINE-GRADE DATA

Chris Collier, the Alliance for Housing Affordability Program Manager for the Housing Authority of Snohomish County, said statistics show that some of these people will have to move farther from jobs to find affordable rent, or some could go homeless.

 

“People of lesser means are being financially disadvantaged -- paying more for far less plus having no equity that they can take with them when they leave.  

They will carry that financial burden for their entire life,” he said.

INEQUITY REVEALED

HOMEOWNERSHIP AND HEALTHY LIVING GAPS ONCE IDENTIFIED BY ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE PROVEN THROUGH FINE-GRADE DATA

 

“The king’s share of land is reserved for single family housing,” said Chris Collier is the Alliance for Housing Affordability Program Manager for the Housing Authority of Snohomish County. 

“People ask if zoning is discriminatory, and I say `of course it is.’ It’s constraining our ability to provide adequate housing for all different types of backgrounds.

 

Collier said, adjusted for inflation, data shows the cost of housing in Snohomish County shot up more than 50 percent in the past two decades, while median household income rose less than 10 percent.

 

“More and more people are renting out of necessity and many of those people are disabled, immigrants, or minorities.

Their rents are rising at a pace far faster than their income,” he said.

 

 

INEQUITY REVEALED

HOMEOWNERSHIP AND HEALTHY LIVING GAPS ONCE IDENTIFIED BY ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE PROVEN THROUGH FINE-GRADE DATA

“Households with a person with a disability have lower income earning ability, people with limited English-speaking capability, females in a system where the glass ceiling still exists, seniors on fixed income – all of those elements lower a household’s earning potential,” said Chris Collier is the Alliance for Housing Affordability Program Manager for the Housing Authority of Snohomish County. 

“People with disabilities have much higher medical and related bills – data proves it.

That shouldn’t remove them from having the ability to own a home.” 

Collier is a fan of cities, counties and states that have or are considering abolishing single family housing and allowing at least low density, low-rise multifamily in those formerly exclusionary and monocultured zones.

INEQUITY REVEALED

HOMEOWNERSHIP AND HEALTHY LIVING GAPS ONCE IDENTIFIED BY ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE PROVEN THROUGH FINE-GRADE DATA

 

Chris Collier is the Alliance for Housing Affordability Program Manager for the Housing Authority of Snohomish County in the northern reaches of the Seattle metropolitan area.

With soaring house prices experienced from California to the Pacific Northwest, he has calculated that to buy a single-family home in Snohomish County, a household must earn $156,000 per year.

 

Collier said part of the problem is expensive housing and a scarcity of quality affordable housing. 

But to get the big picture of inequity, he said policymakers must study the things that limit people from earning enough to be competitive in the home ownership market.

ACCESS FOR ALL IS THE KEY TO EQUITY AND INCLUSION

PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES DESERVE 

A BARRIER-FREE PATH TO THE BEACH 

Mobi-Mat is an ADA compliant portable non-slip wheelchair beach access mat that provides an accessible path over the sand.

There are several Mobi-Mat paths in Miami Beach.

The only issue is maintenance.

If there are divots or bumps, they block the path of wheelchair users.

Cities MUST invest in maintaining accessibility equipment.

INEQUITY REVEALED

HOMEOWNERSHIP AND HEALTHY LIVING GAPS ONCE IDENTIFIED BY ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE PROVEN THROUGH FINE-GRADE DATA

The unfair disparity blows up off the page when Joseph Minicozzi, AICP is the principal of Urban3, found the tiny’s dwelling’s assessed value jumped $266% from 2017-2021, but the roomy one in the luxury community went up only 126% in the same time period.

Making things even more unequal, the pricy house enjoyed a much lower assessment hike despite major renovations, while the tax-burdened one had zero upgrades.

 

“There is no way you could look at the data and see that this is reasonable, fair or equitable,” Minicozzi said. 

“The thing about (practicing) class bias and race bias is when that’s all you do, you don’t know you are wrong.

“Tax assessors are not bad people, but they are operating off old standards and habits, they are reticent to change and they under value the wealthy (residences) because they are terrified of wealthy people.”