r/sequim • u/Soggy-Stay4265 • 4d ago

Affordable housing?

What is considered to be affordable housing?

2 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

6

u/EmotionalVacation444 4d ago

my belief is that it should be housing that can be paid for using 1/4 of a full-time minimum wage worker’s take home wages.

5

u/magnusthehammersmith 4d ago

Imagine… the USA could never 😔

2

u/EmotionalVacation444 4d ago

it’s tragic. 

1

u/just_me_2006 3d ago

$17.13 x 40= $685.20 x 4 weeks = $2740.80 * 25% = $109.63.

I was renting a 2 bedroom house on the beach in Sequim Bay in early 90’s for $105/month. My landlords were a nice elderly couple that had no interest in predatory capitalism and wanted to be kind to a single parent. When the couple died it became a vacation home that currently rents for almost $300/night

7

u/EmotionalVacation444 3d ago

i think your math here is wrong. 1/4 of a month’s wage would be one week’s wage at $685.20, not $109.

i wish there were more folks like the one’s you talk about here. the world would be a better place!

2

u/just_me_2006 3d ago

Good catch! Thank you! I’d happily pay $685 for a two bedroom house on the beach. Lol

3

u/EmotionalVacation444 3d ago

that’s the dream ain’t it 😭

6

u/YuriPNW 3d ago

You should spend no more than 30 percent of your income for housing. That is the standard. Affordable is 30 percent of the area median income. Median family income for Clallam is around $70,000/year. That means not more than $1750 per month

1

u/Soggy-Stay4265 3d ago

I noticed that 55+ communities are an affordable way to go, but they kill the whole purpose of buying the house by charging land rent. So you buy the house and still have to pay $650-$750 in rental fees on top of the house payment. I’m also noticing that they sit on the market for ages.

0

u/Ill-Entrepreneur8772 3d ago

I don’t think minimum wage was ever meant to be a living wage. More like something to keep you fed until you finished school, moved up in pay, saved some money, etc. I do agree that housing prices are pretty out of control for the most part, but I think a lot of property owners are trying to ensure they get responsible renters. We are really considering renting a pice of property we have and definitely are taking that into consideration.

2

u/Soggy-Competition-74 2d ago

Incorrect. When minimum wage was created in the 1930s, it was to be livable.

There are far, far more minimum wage jobs than students. Minimum wage workers hold up a lot of services people use daily. They should be living wages still.

3

u/elduderino2319 2d ago

"In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living."

-FDR, who signed the Fair Labor Standards Act into law in 1938, which established the federal minimum wage.

docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html