Housing data walk: ‘I just want to see there start being action’

“We have the information,” said Wilder resident Dina Shields. “Now it’s time to understand what the action items are.”

Shields was one of several attendees to Thursday’s community listening session on housing, which took place at the Independence Senior Center. The event was put on by the Brighton Center, the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, and the Northern Kentucky Area Development District in hopes of gathering “input from community members to understand how Northern Kentucky’s current housing landscape has impacted their families, and how they hope policymakers will address housing issues going forward,” according to an announcement preceding the event.

Similar events at other locations in the region are scheduled for the coming weeks.

The event was structured as a self-described data walk, where attendees could walk through an extended exhibition highlighting key data points around housing in the region.

As the attendees walked, they were invited to answer a questionnaire about their own housing situations and offer written ideas about how the issue of housing could be addressed.

The event drew heavily from a housing study the Northern Kentucky Area Development District released in September of last year. It examined housing trends in Boone, Kenton, Campbell, Gallatin, Carroll, Owen, Grant and Pendleton counties and revealed some troubling trends.

Conducted in partnership with the county fiscal courts, the engineering firm Stantec, as well as local businesses and civic organizations, the study suggested that the above counties need “to build 6,650 housing units to support economic development in the next 5 years, which equates to 1,330 units per year.”

Broken down by income level, the study showed that the largest need is for what they called “workforce housing,” which refers to households whose wages ranged from $15 to $25 an hour with monthly housing costs between $500 and $1,500. The region needs about 3,000 more housing units to provide for people within that income range.

“About half of the new housing demand… is low-income residents earning up to 60% of the area median household income of $103,600. Current housing in Boone, Kenton and Campbell is positioned for middle to upper-middle professional incomes, but affordability for warehouse, service, and low wage healthcare workers is currently lacking and will be exacerbated by incoming residents,” the study states.

The study illustrates the discrepancy with a bar graph showing median wages for common professions in the region compared to the available housing stock. A teacher making the median salary of $43,740, for example, could only afford 26% of the region’s available rentals and 16% of available-for-sale housing as of the publication of the study.

As such, the demand for one- to two-bedroom rentals and owned properties consistently exceeds their supply. On the other hand, supply for three and four-bedroom properties consistently exceeds demand.

In short, the rate of the region’s economic growth has outpaced the region’s ability to effectively house everyone, especially working people.

Data from other sources also suggests that macroeconomic trends have curbed people’s ability to purchase property.

Housing values have risen precipitously since the start of the pandemic. The east-south central census division of the United States, of which Kentucky is a part, saw a 5.2% increase in housing prices from May 2023 to May 2024, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Interest rates for 15-year and 30-year mortgages have hovered between 5.5% and 7% over the past month, according to Freddie Mac. While these rates are a decline from their peak in October 2023, they’re nowhere near the prepandemic rates.

All of this creates a situation where buying even a small starter home is cost prohibitive for many working families.

“An entry-level house in this area is over $300,000,” said Independence resident Paul Metzger at the event. “That’s too high.”

Metzger actually works in the real estate industry, so he’s witnessed first-hand how the current market makes things difficult, not only for buyers but also for builders. Building material costs are high, he said, which further disincentivizes building smaller homes as builders are less likely to turn a profit.

“I think the big challenge is trying to get these local jurisdictions to allow smaller lots and still allow good quality housing,” Metzger said.

Renters, on the other hand, have their own challenges.

Yovani Velasquez, a systems connector for the Brighton Center, attested to the challenges rent prices can have on working families.

“Housing takes up a significant portion of their salary,” Velasquez said.

About 23% of households in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties were housing burdened from 2018 to 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. A household experiences housing burden when 30% or more of its income goes to paying for housing.

Stephanie Stiene, Brighton Center’s housing development director, said that the information collected from the data walks and focus groups will be collected into a new report slated to come out in November, which community leaders, advocates and stake-holders can use to explore possible solutions.

Stiene said that discussions around the issue of housing aren’t new, but the current conditions affect so many people that it’s hard to ignore.

“I mean, I have a son that’s 21, and he’s paying $1,600 a month for two-bedroom apartment,” Stiene said. “That’s more than my mortgage, so it’s stuff like that that really has made it more of a personal thing.”

Shields called upon local leaders and officials to seriously begin thinking about action.

“There should be nothing off the table,” Shields said, even rent caps.

She hoped that leaders and residents could start getting together to begin furnishing “actionable items,” she said.

“I just went to see there start being action,” Shields said.

Two other data walks will occur in the coming weeks for residents who wish to learn more about the housing situation and submit their thoughts. Dates and locations are below.

• Tuesday, Aug. 27, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Erlanger Baptist Church on Commonwealth Ave.
• Thursday, Sept. 5, from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Pendleton County Public Library on Robbins Ave.

Stiene said that the Brighton Center is currently working on ways for people to leave feedback electronically if they can’t attend the sessions.