She looked up at me with tears almost filling her eyes and simply asked, “but what about people like me?

I was speaking at an event for young leaders in our community sharing about some of the great work we’ve been doing to bring new employment opportunities, lowering property taxes, bringing in new entertainment venues, improving infrastructure, and providing a variety of housing options across the community.

During the Q&A portion, this young woman in her mid-20’s, single, college educated, employed as an advanced academics teacher in our school district, she wanted to know what efforts or options may someday exist for people like her to actually own real estate within close proximity to where she works and does all of her shopping.

Her question was essentially a statement saying, “I’m good enough to work in this community. I’m good enough to educate the minds of children in this community. I’m certainly good enough to spend sales tax dollars in this community. But I’m not good enough to actually live in this community.” And while teachers across the country are notoriously underpaid for the work they do and the educational attainment levels we expect of them, the starting salaries for teachers in our local school district are significantly higher than every adjacent school district. In fact, this young woman’s salary as a 1st year teacher in our school district of $63,000 is 16% higher than the $54,080 median salary for all Americans between the age of 25-34 according to the most recent Census data.

But she still lives at home with her parents.

Because in my community, the lowest priced home that sold in 2023 was a 2 bedroom/1 bathroom mobile home in need of serious updates and repairs cost $150,000. The lowest priced site built home was a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom home that’s 60 years old with no flooring or appliances and sold for $175,000. The down payment and closing cost requirements, if qualifying for special first time homebuyer programs available, are roughly $8,000-$10,000. The monthly 30 year mortgage payment (including taxes, insurance, and PMI) for such a home is around $1,800/month.

The Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development uses the 30% Rule as a guide to assess home affordability – stating that “a household should spend no more than 30% of its income on housing costs.” With a $63,000 annual income and gross monthly income of $5,250 for this young woman, HUD says her maximum housing costs should be $1,575/month. If she were able to buy the absolute of least expensive homes in our community in 2023, putting the bare minimum cash down, and not make any repairs or updates to the home and just live there in as-is condition, her monthly housing costs would be 34% of her income and by definition qualify as “housing burdened.” Of course this doesn’t consider the inevitable replacement costs of mechanical systems within the home in the future.

To continue the story a little further, $5,250/month is her gross monthly income. There’s still the required pension contributions, federal income taxes (which are higher because she doesn’t have a mortgage interest or property tax deduction), and dental, vision, and health insurance contributions. Her net monthly paycheck is $3,455. She carries no credit card debt and drives a paid off 6 year old vehicle. She does have outstanding student loans that went back into repayment last Fall when the Covid-19 relief payment pause ended. Those payments are $385/month, which is about $125/month less than the national average among her peers.

Were she to buy the absolute least expensive home in our community, after mortgage and student loan payments, she would have roughly $1,270/month for food, clothing, fuel for her car, vehicle maintenance, electricity, water, internet, cell phone, and any entertainment. That doesn’t leave much room to save for when her car inevitably needs replaced or when the water heater or air conditioner break and need repairs. That doesn’t leave room to payoff student loans more aggressively or to invest over and above her pension contributions and doesn’t even consider that she’s a person of faith wanting to tithe 10% of her income to her local church.

So this professional educated teacher working hard within our community earning an above average income for her age and earning more than her peers in surrounding school districts….. still lives at home with her parents.

What about rental options so she could have her own space and sense of independence and start out life on her own as a young adult? Of the 450 leased homes in the North Texas MLS system from 2023, the median home rented in our City was a 4 bed/2 bath home at 1,920 square feet renting for $2,395/month. In fact, out of the 450 home leases signed in 2023, only 15 of those homes were under the $1,575/month range that Housing and Urban Development would recommend to be in line with the 30% rule. 8 of those 15 were actually inside of 1 privately owned apartment building.

What about an apartment? A quick search online shows that the lowest priced apartment in my city is a 1 bed/1 bath for $1,190/month.

We found a winner! For this young professional that works in our community to also live on her own in our community, her available option for her own independence, her own space, and to start life as an adult is in one of the few 1 bedroom apartments that exist in the city. Which is certainly okay and how the vast majority of us also all started out as adults. At this price, she is not rent burdened by HUD standards, but after rent, utilities, student loan payments, and general life necessities it will take her 3-5 years of saving to come up with the bare minimum of down payment options in order to purchase the cheapest of homes nearby – assuming home prices don’t appreciate any more than they already have during that time period. She will most likely be in her 30’s before homeownership will even be a consideration for her. And on her professional teaching salary, even when she reaches that level she’ll likely be considered by HUD as “housing burdened” in her monthly housing expenses.

So she has chosen, for now, to live at home and help her parents pay for food and utilities while she aggressively pays off student loans and builds a savings account for a down payment – and (in her words) “find some rich guy that makes more money than me and can actually afford a house.”

You may think to yourself, particularly if you don’t live in Texas, why not live farther away outside of the city where housing costs are less and commute to work? We are the farther away! This is a suburban community on the Southern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. In order for the housing price/rent price story to get substantially better and within this young woman’s – and frankly every middle income and low income worker within the whole area – range, you must get more than 30 miles away in any direction. There is no viable public transportation here that connects communities with one another and certainly not out into the suburbs and suburban sprawl communities. You trade housing affordability for 20,000 additional wear and tear miles on a vehicle each year, 2-3 hours a day in a car stuck in traffic, and $3.50/gallon gas that ultimately costs you more than it would paying for rent to live closer to work.

It is no secret. We have a housing crisis. An entire generation is being left behind, unable to enter thriving adulthood and independence. And scarier yet, is an entire majority income demographic in America is beginning to be shut out from being able to live in a place of their own, whether they rent or own. Our teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters – all of the people we call “Heroes” (particularly if they’re under 30 years old or didn’t already own real estate prior to the last 5-10 years) they are being wholly shut out of communities. But it’s not just them. Restaurant workers, custodial staff, school bus drivers, retail employees including mid and upper level managers, and virtually everyone that earns less than $100,000 in household income are rapidly becoming housing burdened with limited options. If you don’t already own real estate – your future looks scary and overwhelming. And that’s why this young woman looked at me with tears in her eyes. She recognizes the reality she’s faced with.

If you are good enough to work in this community, you are good enough to live here too. That shouldn’t be some earth shattering commentary. The majority of decent humans likely believe that sentiment.

But as you’ve seen, the one viable housing option available today to people like this young teacher that contributes greatly to our community – is a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom apartment that takes up about 23% of her gross monthly income. And, I’m certain that it’s the same in your city as it is in mine, the online forums and public discussions overwhelming express their disproval of any apartment building construction. Community discussions tend to vehemently oppose any residential zoning that is not single family zoning – and even then they don’t want too many of those new homes because of the potential impacts to traffic on the streets and or the checkout line at the grocery store.

To the young woman I met this week and everyone like her, there are solutions and there is hope! And leaders across the nation are beginning to wake up to these possibilities.

Cities – both mine here in Texas and yours in your own community – must unlock the entire book of housing options and let developers, builders, and property owners get to work to drastically increase the supply of those housing options in our communities. Today, in the vast majority of American cities, your options for where you live are either a detached single family home or a large apartment complex. Not everyone wants or needs a single family detached home. Certainly not everyone needs a large lot and large square footage single family detached home. But low maintenance cottage courts with common spaces are a low cost housing option that hasn’t been built anywhere in decades. Manor homes, that look like 1 home but are actually 4 housing units, give an alternate rental option for young adults besides large apartment complexes. Townhomes and Row-homes give ownership opportunities at a significantly lower cost for those seeking low maintenance housing. Accessory Dwelling Units allow young adults to have their independence while giving the property owner a potential new way to make some extra money. ADU’s also allow an older generation to retain their independence while selling their single family home to a new generation of homeowners. Duplexes allow families to own the property where they live while renting out the attached housing unit at an affordable rate and helping to pay down the mortgage. Converting existing underutilized commercial centers into condo units unlocks an entire new housing option and reclaims vacant property. Allowing a coffee shop owner to live in a studio apartment above their shop, or an insurance agent to live in the same place as their office is another option that seldom exists in 2024. We don’t just have to have single family detached homes or massive apartment complexes for homes. There are a large variety of housing options. And if we can unlock them in our communities, these young adults and mid-income workers will finally have a pathway to homes that don’t make them housing burdened and they can move out of their parents home and into thriving productive adulthood.

Because if they’re good enough to work here… if they’re good enough to educate our kids… if they’re good enough to serve in our hospitals… if they’re good enough to spend their sales tax dollars here…. then they are certainly good enough to live here too.