Bring Back The YMCA, The YWCA, And The Old Fashioned Boarding House
One answer to the expensive housing market for single adults. One of many.
I found this article here on Substack a little while ago. It’s definitely worth the read:
Here you are in an expensive city like Washington, DC, or New York City. Add Los Angeles and San Francisco to the mix. Let’s not forget Chicago either, or Austin, and now even Nashville. There are many other cities where the cost of housing has become exorbitant. Years ago, cities had the YMCA and the YWCA, single occupancy rooms that would rent for $230/month in TODAY’S dollars! There were also residential hotels, some of which, but not all, were skid row hotels. There were also boarding houses, where you could get room and board for a reasonable price. Along with the “Y” there were other affordable housing options, for those at the bottom and the lower ends of the working poor.
When I first moved to Washington, DC, in 1980, you could still find affordable housing for a single person in a nice, residential, and safe neighborhood. The Takoma and Brookland neighborhoods, were two of those places. I’m sure there were others, but those neighborhoods are what I’m familiar with. I lived in Takoma, and I used to visit friends that lived in Brookland. That was before the crack epidemic and subsequent crime wave, that started in the late 80s into the early 90s.
In 1980, through a co-worker in the Air Force Band, I was able to secure a 1-BR/1-BA apartment in the Takoma neighborhood of Washington, DC. My rent: $170 a month including utilities. That is $670 a month in 2025’s dollars, according to AI. Where in DC can you find a 1 BR/1BA apartment for $670 a month? Maybe $2,670 a month. We seem to be real good at building “luxury” apartments. What about the other end of the economic sector, the working poor? Yes W.O.R.K.I.N.G!
The majority of the urban and inner-ring poor are not criminals. They are hardworking people, many working two and three jobs just to keep afloat. We don’t see them when they are cleaning office buildings in Bethesda, at 2-O’clock in the morning, and then taking the 5-something AM buses back to Langley Park, MD, where they live in a two bedroom, roach infested apartment, with seven other people. That’s the only way they can afford the rent. Bethesda residents would never allow affordable housing, for the working poor underclass, that services them.
I have many friends in the urbanism community, that are all for having “Social Housing,” which is just another way of saying, “government housing projects for everyone.” Yes, I know it exists in Vienna, Austria, but Washington, DC, is not Vienna, Austria, nor is it Vienna, Virginia. Besides government employees, why does everyone’s housing always have to come from the government?
I’m in favor of government housing, if your employer is the government. I also am in favor of having our elected representatives, senators, their staffs, and all permanent bureaucrat government employees, working in the nation’s capital, live in government housing, in Washington, DC. Yes, in the city itself, not in the suburbs. Ideally, they should all live on Capitol Hill, and walk to work, but I’ll settle for DC. They should also be required to send their kids to DC public schools. Washington, DC, would have the best public schools in the country, within a very short period of time.
At the bottom ends of the economic totem pole, or ladder if you prefer, people are getting more desperate. The working poor are sick of being just able to survive. That also includes the college educated working poor. A starting salary of $50,000 per year doesn’t go very far, when you are paying over $2,000 a month for rent, along with your student loan payment. The last thing you want is to be 30 years old, and still living in a group house with 6 other people. That was for when you were in college. For some though, it’s not a choice.
I’m a conservative, but I’m also realistic. It’s time to change the zoning laws, to allow more office to mixed-use development. Also, change the laws, so that employer-provided housing is not a taxable fringe benefit.
Here’s the million-dollar question: Would you accept a salary cut of 20%, if you were given free housing and utilities, as part of your employment contract, when you are paying upwards of 50% of your income in housing costs? My gut feeling, is a lot of folks would say yes. Where are you going to find an apartment in DC, where the rent is 20% of your income? I’m hearing crickets.
The percentage wouldn’t change as you received raises. $45,000 per year, 20%. $60,000 per year, 20%. $160,000 per year, 20%. Do it in pre-tax dollars. It just might put you in a lower tax bracket too. As far as current employees living in the suburbs and exurbs, they would be grandfathered. They would have the option if they chose, of selling their house, and moving into provided housing in the city, costing them 20% of their salary. When they left or retired, the person hired to take their place, would be required to accept employer-provided housing, as part of their compensation package. Yes, I know it’s a two-tier system. Eventually, it won’t be.
Think about Washington, DC’s business district. With some common sense, development and re-development, the downtown business district would become a vibrant business/residential district, with many options for shopping, and entertainment. Those downtown areas, would become alive again, just like they were in the 50s, 60s, and part of the 70s; before the suburban shopping malls damaged them, and the recent COVID lockdowns killed them.
There is a trend today, of becoming a non-ownership society. Even office space is rented on a per need basis. Look at We Work. It’s popular with quite a few non-profits. You rent office space when you need it. Everyone in your organization telecommutes from home. You rent an office, when you have the staff come in for in person meetings.
At one time, We Work had an offshoot called We Live. It didn’t catch on. That was before the COVID pandemic. Times are different today. It might be time to give it another try. Yes, it’s co-living, just like the group house you lived in when you were in college. We need every tool available, to encourage the working and middle classes, to move back into the cities. You can’t have a city, that is an affordable pleasure to live in, unless that city has good, solid, community oriented middle rungs on the income ladder, with plenty of opportunities, to climb up to the next rung.
While the “official” poverty line is around $30,000 for a family of four, there is an argument that the true poverty line in our urban areas, is actually $140,000/year. It’s from Yahoo News. It’s a good, eye-opening read, for both liberals and conservatives. If it costs a family of four, $140K a year just to keep their head above water, something is definitely wrong.
So how do we fix it? Part of it, is we have to build from the bottom up. We bring back the “Y.” We also allow resident hotels and boarding houses for the next rung up on the income ladder. With the right management, the We Live concept could become a viable housing alternative too. When the creative classes that move to the cities at the start of their careers, decide it’s time to settle down and start a family, we need to have appropriate housing options available too. We really do need to build housing that is affordable for the working, lower-middle, and middle-classes. We already build housing for the upper-middle and wealthy. Now, let’s get to work.