When Jennifer Bagwell moved to Maple Grove, Minn., from Wisconsin in 1997, she faced a tough choice: settle close to her work and family in a place she couldn’t afford, or find less expensive housing and face a long commute and isolation.
She chose the former. In the months that followed, she went further and further into debt, spending more than 50 percent of her full-time earnings just to pay the rent for her and her 8-year-old son.
“It was a vicious cycle,” said Bagwell, 29, who wanted to be a teacher but found herself working dead-end jobs just to pay the bills. She got by, but never ahead.
Bagwell’s dilemma is one facing thousands of others who, like her, struggle to find and keep affordable housing in a Twin Cities market so tight that only 1.5 percent of rental units are open at a given moment.
Their struggle, all too often, is nearly invisible to many folks used to associating a housing crisis with nightly pictures of homeless people standing in food lines or huddled over grates for warmth.
But amid the general prosperity generated by a strong economy, the lack of affordable housing quietly is taking its toll on thousands.
Often the working poor must choose between paying the rent and buying a new winter coat; or face disrupted lives for their children, who transfer from school to school as their parents move in search of permanent work. There also are desperate families that overcrowd church basements for overnight shelter because they can’t find apartments.
“There are people who are not on the street but keep changing housing every three months,” says Kit Hadley, commissioner of Minnesota’s Housing Finance Agency, which helps communities fund programs to address housing problems.
“People are doubled up (two families to an apartment) . . . There are people living with their parents.”
The causes of the housing problem, like the solutions, are complex and difficult — and often so big that over time many people can be overwhelmed by trying to address all the factors, those closest to the situation say.
To be defined as affordable, housing must take no more than 30 percent of a family’s income. Under this guideline, Minnesota renters need to make $12 an hour, or about $25,000 a year, to afford the typical $621 rent for two-bedroom apartments in the metro area, according to the Family Housing Fund, a nonprofit advocacy organization for affordable housing.
Those are the wage levels earned by many of the store cashiers, child-care workers, teacher’s aides, janitors and bank tellers we regularly encounter. Workers like those are among the more than one-third of Twin Cities renters who cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment.
Households with only one full-time wage earner face particular difficulty finding an affordable home, according to the Family Housing Fund.
Bagwell was one of the lucky few to find a way out. With her second child on the way, Bagwell found a government-subsidized townhouse complex specifically built to add affordable housing to Maple Grove’s housing stock. She now pays $202 a month — no more than 30 percent of her income — enabling her to catch up on bills, start school full time and buy modest Christmas presents.
But housing like Bagwell’s had met initial community resistance, another obstacle affordable housing advocates must surmount.
“I think Maple Grove didn’t want to accept affordable housing in their community because they think it’s an inner-city thing and it’ll only bring crime,” Bagwell said.
She believes such fears are unfounded.
“They checked backgrounds — criminal, drugs, credit history, the whole works — and you have to have a job or be in school,” she said of the complex, which consists of 19 units in five buildings.
Bagwell, like many in her situation, faces other biases.
“Sometimes people look down on single moms and they say, `She got herself into this mess.’ I’ve paid dearly for my mistakes . . . but that doesn’t mean my kids have to suffer.”
Her older son, now 10, proudly shows off his new home to friends, she says: “It’s important to bring a kid up in a good environment and see their parents achieving and succeeding.”
Too few kids get that chance, according to Ellie Seifert, who visits homeless families as coordinator for the St. Paul Public School District’s homeless program,
She sees firsthand the housing shortage’s impact — much of it hidden to the general public — on many schools.
Seifert meets with children and their parents no matter where their temporary home — emergency shelters, a friend’s house and even vans. The average age of a Twin Cities homeless person is 9, she says.
“It can be really expensive to find housing for five kids,” Seifert says. That tight market, she adds, allows landlords to be picky about renters, making the slightest credit blemish stand out and opening the door to discrimination, sexual harassment and other abuses.
“We have so many families that find housing with landlords that aren’t honest,” Seifert says. “They’ve paid down a huge deposit and then show up to find the place is condemned.”
Some mothers escaping from domestic abuse situations “are just desperate to get a place to live, and then they aren’t treated right,” she says.
Until these families find homes, advocates such as Seifert work on solutions case by case, providing as much support as possible for children who may fall behind in class, miss school or become shy or angry from dealing with the stigma of homelessness.
Teachers see the impact of housing problems firsthand, including transient students who come and go throughout the year, often requiring catch-up sessions. In other instances, teachers must deal with discipline problems from kids who act out the tension often seen at home and must handle classmates who watch their friends miss class or abruptly move away.
Employers, especially those trying to fill entry-level or service positions in the suburbs, have to scramble when employees cannot find nearby housing.
Rochester’s Mayo Clinic recently announced that it would fund affordable housing because of its difficulty in staffing lower-level support services.
But it can be hard at times to help those unable to pay the rent because many keep the matter private, as Bagwell did when she first moved to Maple Grove.
“I was embarrassed,” she says.
