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The Johnson County Board of Commissioners recently released new data showing a steep drop in homes under $300,000.
Since 2018, availability has dropped 75%.
“Absolutely. There’s a lack of affordable housing here in Johnson County and really across America,” Johnson County Board of Commissioner Chairman Mike Kelly said. “We are in a housing crisis.”
Affordable housing is a broad term.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development defines it as occupants paying no more than 30% of their gross income on housing costs, utilities included.
United Community Services (UCS) of Johnson County estimates 40% of renters and 20% of homeowners in the county fall into that category.
“You’re not saving for emergencies," UCS Executive Director Kristy Baughman said. "You’re struggling to save to buy a home. You might be struggling to save for retirement. You might be struggling to buy healthy food, you are doing everything to maintain your housing.”
United Community Services of Johnson County works on public policy, advocacy, and data analysis for issues surrounding housing, homelessness, and health equity.
“We’ve seen houses that might be affordable for first-time home buyers or for families disappear,” said Baughman. “And have found more expensive houses to be more of the norm.”
Kelly and Baughman agree that Johnson County needs to find innovative solutions.
“Government working from an incentive standpoint will be important if we are going to be able to bring forward these affordable homes," Kelly said. "But it can’t do that alone. It has to work with partners. It's going to take nonprofits. It’s going to take contractors and developers working together to be able to find that right capital stack.”
Baughman pointed to current affordable housing tax credits and eviction mediation programs as a starting point.
“There’s not one solution to affordable housing,” she said. “It’s a lot of different things, and I think that Johnson County is well-positioned to try a lot of different things, and I’m pretty optimistic about us doing that, but we need support from our state legislators as well.”
United Community Services and leaders within the Johnson County government said they will continue their support of the affordable housing tax credits in the state of Kansas.
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