The Bill We Never Sent

(Editorial featured in the August 30 edition of the Winston-Salem Journal)

In May, after Magnolia Apartments was sold to an out-of-town investment company, 32 households received notices giving them just 26 days to leave their homes.

For many residents, that meant finding another affordable apartment in one of the tightest housing markets Winston-Salem has experienced, while completing applications, coming up with deposits, arranging movers and navigating an overwhelmed housing system.

Some had lived at Magnolia for more than a decade. Many were older adults, people living with disabilities, or households surviving on very limited incomes.

Beginning in May and continuing through July, City with Dwellings worked alongside 30 of those households. We spent more than 500 hours helping residents gather documents, find housing, complete applications, navigate inspections, secure financial assistance, coordinate moves and, in several cases, appear in court after eviction proceedings were filed. We also spent thousands of dollars in direct assistance.

We did this because we were not willing to watch our neighbors become homeless. Only a handful were already City with Dwellings clients. Most were not. But homelessness was a very real possibility if someone didn’t step in.

“In that short window, we devoted the equivalent of nearly three months of one employee’s full-time work to a crisis we did not create. That was the bill we never sent.”

While nearly everyone who sought our help was successfully relocated, I hesitate to call that success. Every household is paying more for housing than before. Some are paying more for less. Even with substantial community support, this upheaval cost residents money they did not have, time they could not spare, and emotional energy they could scarcely afford to lose.

This was not a natural disaster. The investment group had previously acquired another apartment community across Northwest Boulevard, renovated it and significantly increased rents. The owners cited legitimate concerns about crime, drug activity and deferred maintenance at Magnolia. Those problems existed, and everyone deserves safe, well-maintained housing.

But why should improving a neighborhood require replacing the people who already live there?

There is a difference between investing in a neighborhood and extracting value from it. Investment should create safer homes, healthier neighborhoods and greater stability for the people who live there.

“When investment instead removes housing that lower-income residents can afford and replaces it with housing they cannot, we should ask who really benefited.”

At Magnolia, the costs were largely left to others. Residents bore the greatest cost. Nonprofits, churches, housing agencies, landlords and donors stepped in to help.

The company earns its return. The community pays the bill.

Magnolia is one property, but the larger pattern should concern us. Across our community, we are losing naturally affordable housing while adding apartments that many working families, older adults and people living on disability benefits simply cannot afford. With every affordable apartment we lose, we narrow the number of places where people with modest incomes can live.

Then we act surprised when more people struggle to remain housed or eventually live on our streets.

Homelessness rarely begins the day someone sleeps outside. It begins much earlier, as housing becomes less affordable and fewer options remain. We cannot continue excluding an entire segment of our community from housing and then wonder why homelessness grows.

Winston-Salem needs investment, including in neighborhoods that have suffered from years of neglect. But investment should strengthen those neighborhoods without displacing the people who already call them home. Safe housing and affordable housing should not be competing ideals.

City with Dwellings would make the same choice again tomorrow. We will step in when our neighbors are at risk of homelessness. That is what communities do.

But a community’s willingness to step in should never relieve those who profit from redevelopment of responsibility for its consequences. Unless we rethink how we invest in our neighborhoods, Winston-Salem will keep paying the bill.