Mayors of 250 cities from Canada to Chile didn’t have to look far to see one of the chief concerns they came to discuss during the first Cities Summit of the Americas held in Denver on Thursday and Friday.
Issues like the digital divide, sustainable development and accommodating migrants were all discussed, but those are more hidden. Denver’s lack of affordable housing was on full display just outside the Colorado Convention Center, and for many, it was a struggle they knew all too well.
“What would it feel like if everybody were housed in your community,” Charlie Clark, mayor of the Canadian city of Saskatoon, asked those attending a panel on “Cities for Adequate Housing” held Thursday afternoon.
The question, one he has asked others before, came to him again as he walked downtown, he said. He noticed the large number of unhoused people living on the streets. Then he noticed the heavy presence of armed security guards. And he also recalled the struggles his city, 973 miles due north of Denver, faces, and how hard it has been to find answers.
“We don’t have a housing system that is working. It is broken” Leilani Farha, global director at The Shift, an advocacy group working to end homelessness and evictions globally, told those attending the session.
Housing costs have greatly outstripped wages and the number of unhoused people is growing around the world, she said. Even those who do have housing are increasingly stretched to meet rent or loan payments.
Counterintuitively, the greatest housing stress is coming in cities with the greatest economic success in recent years, hot spots like San Jose, Seattle, Austin and Denver. While rising prosperity can alleviate many conditions, like poor nutrition, it can exacerbate housing shortfalls as more people move in to pursue jobs.
“This is a structural problem that is difficult for cities to address on their own,” she said. “We can’t get anywhere if we tinker here and there.” Nor is just building more the answer, given that most developers tend to pursue the higher end of the market, not affordable.
The Shift’s solution — declare housing to be a public good, a basic human right that all of society should work together to provide.
But governments are reluctant to make that leap, fearful that they could be left on the hook for ensuring those rights. Given the size of the housing shortfall, and existing funding shortfalls, a requirement to provide housing could crush already stretched budgets.
“Cities can’t pay for this on their own,” said Berry Vrbanovic, mayor of Kitchener, which is about 66 miles west of Toronto in Canada.
Yet, the lack of affordable housing is costing cities in so many other ways — from kids who are struggling in school because their families are couch surfing to higher crime rates on the streets to teachers, firefighters and police officers who can’t afford to live in the communities they serve, said Victoria Woodards, mayor of Tacoma, which is about 30 miles south of Seattle.
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Tacoma’s approach, one taken by many Colorado cities, has been to focus on the construction of more homes and apartments, making sure the ones already built remain in good shape and removing barriers to the permitting process, Woodwards said.
Clark estimates 70% of the focus of Sasaktoon’s government comes back one way or another to housing issues. With temperatures that can fall to 40 degrees below zero in the winter, the housing question in his city is one of life and death, primarily among native populations who are disproportionately impacted.
“We would be held most accountable if we declared housing a human right,” he said of cities. “That fear should not stop us from figuring it out.”
Clark and the other mayors on the panel said more coordination and help are needed from both the state or provincial level and nationally. But Colorado offers a case study of how difficult that dance between state and local control can be when it comes to housing.
Fed up with local governments giving lip service to providing more affordable housing and ongoing roadblocks to greater density, Gov. Jared Polis introduced a massive overhaul of local land use regulations in the legislature. Local governments, describing the push to create state standards as gross overreach, fought back hard and were able to get key provisions gutted.
“Your ability to attract and retain talent without housing is impossible,” said Mitch Roth, mayor of Hawai’i County. Governments that fail to properly address the housing problem and who perpetuate the status quo could put their futures at risk.
Home prices and rents have risen so much that nearly half the people born in the state no longer live in the state, and hotels are unable to staff enough employees to accommodate the tourists who are a key support of the state economy.
Hawaii faces such a severe shortage in affordable housing that the state’s governor is working on issuing an emergency declaration, he said.
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