Responding to the need for affordable housing: Advocates persevere to address a basic human right

By Barb Arland-Fye
The Catholic Messenger

Jenni Swanson was in her early 20s, a college graduate from the Midwest headed to Virginia with her husband at that time so that he could attend Virginia Tech. They figured they would find employment for Jenni and an apartment shortly after arriving in Virginia. The couple camped out in a state park, thinking it would be a temporary situation. However, the economy was not good in the early 1980s and jobs were scarce. The couple lived in their tent for five months as Jenni searched desperately for a job.

“If you don’t have an address, no one wants to hire you. But you have to have a job to get housing,” said Jenni, who overcame that traumatic setback to become a successful businessperson who serves on the Rock Island (Illinois) City Council. She also is an ambassador for Quad Cities Housing Council, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last month.

Affordable housing remains a challenge in every state of the nation, especially for people working minimum-wage jobs. “Nationally, there is a shortage of more than 7 million affordable homes for our nation’s 10.8 million extremely low-income families,” according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “There is no state or county where a renter working full-time at minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment” (nlihc.org/explore-issues/why-we-care/problem).

In Iowa, 101,442 (27%) of renter households have extremely low incomes (0 to 30% of the median income) while facing a shortage of 58,377 rental homes affordable and available to them, the National Low Income Housing Coalition reports.

“High interest rates and low inventory are contributing to this issue, as is the growing number of millennials, who are looking for larger homes to raise families,” the U.S. Government Accountability Office states. “For low-income Americans, the hunt for affordable housing can be especially tough” (https://tinyurl.com/mz7ndevm).

Persistent advocacy

The Quad Cities Housing Council (QCHC), of which the Diocese of Davenport is a partner; the YWCA Clinton Empowerment Center; and Humility Homes and Services Inc., based in Davenport, are among the organizations striving to close the gap. On Dec. 13, for example, the YWCA Clinton Empowerment Center will break ground on a $5.5 million project to build an apartment house of 24 supportive housing apartment units in downtown Clinton. Advocates demonstrated tenacity to overcome the NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) opposition to the project, which received City Council approval in the fall of 2023 to proceed.

“Our community is experiencing a historic housing crisis,” the YWCA Clinton Empowerment Center stated in a July 2024 report to the Iowa Balance of State Continuum of Care. “Our Coordinated Entry Intake hotline for Clinton and Jackson counties has averaged 600 calls per quarter from those seeking services to help address homelessness. … Over the past two years, the Clinton/Jackson intake service waiting list has 100-250 applications representing one to eight people seeking housing assistance.” Anticipated opening for the Clinton supportive housing facility is November 2025.

People with lived experiences of being unhoused are among the advocates assisting with efforts to bring more affordable housing to the region, including Jenni Swanson. After being unhoused for five months, she landed a part-time job with minimal hours at a bank. Having a job made it possible for Jenni and her husband to apply for a housing voucher. During that challenging time, she remembers standing in line to receive free cheese, hot dogs and bread. “To this day, I struggle eating grilled cheese,” she admits.

Being unhoused has left her with the lingering fear of losing her home. “There are a lot of things that happened that are out of your control that can cause you to become homeless,” she told The Catholic Messenger. Her experience led to her housing advocacy work on behalf of the Rock Island City Council. “Food, clothing and shelter are basic human needs and all humans matter,” she says in a QCHC “Housing Matters” video awareness campaign.

Celebrating successes

In 2020, the QC Housing Cluster, in collaboration with the Housing Council, created a 10-year vision, called Silos to Solutions, to address the growing housing crisis in the Quad Cities. Its partner agencies chose to focus first on the needs of individuals and families with extremely low incomes (0-30% of median income), which they believed would lead “to future efforts that cross the spectrum of affordable housing for all income groups.”

QCHC’s research found a gap of 6,645 affordable units for households identified as extremely low income. The council and its partners concluded that a combination of new construction, rehabilitation of existing properties no longer on the market or fit for habitation, and bringing affordability through rental subsidies would be the best approach (see accompanying breakout on Silos to Solutions’ plan).

The partners took time Nov. 14 to celebrate QCHC’s impact over the past quarter-century. “Through its funding and advocacy, the Quad Cities Hous­ing Coun­cil has impacted 7,500 units of housing in the Quad Cities since 1999. Over 7,500 people have a wonderful place to call home,” said Stacy Kiser, who chairs the Quad Cities Housing Cluster board and serves as executive director of Vera French Housing in Davenport.  “We have contributed $35 million over 25 years to affordable housing,” said Leslie Kilgannon, director of the Quad Cities Housing Council. “We need more.”

Quad Cities Tenant Alliance had reason to celebrate the same week as Quad Cities Housing Council, with the Davenport City Council’s approval of a rent abatement ordinance. It allows the city’s inspections department to relieve tenants, temporarily, of the duty to pay rent when a threat to life and safety exists. Housing advocates’ efforts (many of them renters) intensified their efforts after the partial collapse of a downtown Davenport apartment building last year that claimed three lives, injured others and displaced the tenants.

The goals of the ordinance are “incentivizing tenants to report building issues promptly for repair, incentivizing owners and property managers to complete repairs promptly, and to preserve housing stock in safe and decent condition” (Quad Cities Interfaith e-newsletter, 11-22-24).

“There seems to be broad consensus that this new tool is necessary to manage problems caused by 1% of landlords that have trouble complying with building codes,” said Dennis Platt, a co-chair of the Quad Cities Tenant Alliance. “This is a step in the right direction,” Kilgannon said. “We need to hold bad landlords accountable and lift up good landlords … we need all hands on deck to solve our affordable housing crisis.”

Silos to Solutions: an affordable housing vision

A collaborative effort of the Quad Cities Housing Cluster and Quad Cities Housing Council in 2020 resulted in a 10-year vision to address the affordable housing crisis in the region. The groups said their studies show that affordable housing in the Quad Cities region has fallen by 30.5% since 2010. Most households living with extremely low incomes struggle to afford available, affordable housing (76.1%). ​

Silos to Solutions focuses first on the needs of individuals and families with extremely low incomes, which the housing cluster and council say will lead to future efforts addressing all income groups.

The six critical pillars of the 10-year vision:

• Production – Address the gap of 6,645 affordable units for households identified as extremely low income through a combination of new construction, rehabilitation of existing properties no longer on the market or fit for habitation, and bringing affordability through rental subsidies.
• Preservation – Maintain, improve and/or rehabilitate 95% of existing affordable units to ensure availability and quality.
• Protection – Reduce eviction rates through coordinated efforts to provide tenant education and advocacy, minimize unsafe living conditions, distribute homeless prevention funds and resolve landlord-tenant disputes through mediation.
• Provision – Provide services that help individuals and families maintain housing stability.
• Payment – Increase the Local Housing Trust Fund to provide $1 million annually, available to the Illinois and Iowa Quad Cities.
• Partnership – Engage community partnerships, program participants and citizens to foster dialogue and generate action on affordable housing.

The partners recommend, among other things, consideration of diverse housing options, such as tiny homes, multi-family units, Community Land Trusts, intergenerational housing and single-room-occupancy units. The partners also call for maximizing zoning practices to encourage diverse housing types. All of the recommendations for the six pillars listed above include tracking progress.

Source: Quad Cities Housing Council (qchousingcouncil.org/housingmatters)