This story is part of a series that highlights the challenges and solutions around housing in Detroit and is made possible through underwriting support from the Detroit (Region O) Regional Housing Partnership.
It can be difficult to make sense of what "affordable housing" actually means in Detroit.
Rents for properties marketed as "affordable" can range wildly, from
$234 a month to
$1,800 a month for a two-bedroom apartment. Meanwhile, online discussions of affordable or low-income housing are rife with stereotypes of what such housing looks like and who lives in it. Facebook commenters assert that affordable housing residents should "
get a job and stop making other people pay [their] bills," or that the quality of such housing shows that its residents "
just don't like nice things." Sifting through the jargon, the rents, and the comment wars can be exhausting and confusing.
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Sonya MaysSonya Mays.
"When people hear 'low income,' that kind of gets translated for many people into 'the projects' or ... the classic Section Eight voucher," says Sonya Mays, president and CEO of
Develop Detroit, a nonprofit developer specializing in affordable and mixed-income housing. "And then 'affordable housing' just ends up being this murky term for people that ... you may ascribe negative connotation to or you may not."
So what does "low-income" or "affordable" housing actually mean in Detroit? What forms does it take? And who lives in it? We spoke to several local experts to separate jargon, stereotypes, and misconceptions from reality.
How is affordable housing defined?
The terms "low-income," "affordable," "workforce," and "market-rate" are often thrown around in reference to new housing developments. And while those terms may be misused, and therefore confused, there are fairly common, simple definitions of each.
Affordable housing is perhaps the most clearly defined of the four terms. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines it as housing that costs no more than 30% of the occupant's gross income. Area median income (AMI) is typically used as a benchmark to determine affordability for a given community. The AMI for the Detroit metro area (which HUD considers to include not just Wayne County, but also Lapeer, Macomb, Oakland, and St. Clair counties) is
$95,900, meaning that annual affordable housing costs should be $28,770 or less.
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Chase CantrellChase Cantrell.
"There's a language disconnect that happens when we use the word 'affordable'," says Chase Cantrell, executive director of
Building Community Value Detroit, an organization that promotes small-scale, equitable development in the city. "So I usually start there, letting people know that when a government official or developer is using that word, it is not the typical colloquial definition that most people are used to hearing. Affordable to most people is, 'What can I afford?'"
Affordable housing developments are often described in terms of targeting residents who make a certain percentage of the AMI. HUD considers people making 50-80% of the AMI to be "low income," and those making 50% or less to be "very low income." Many residents fit those descriptions in the city of Detroit, where the AMI is much lower than the metro area as defined by HUD. The city's median income is $36,453 according to 2022 census figures, meaning that annual affordable housing costs should be $10,936 or less. The federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program is often used to build housing developments for residents whose incomes fall below either 50% or 60% of the AMI.
Eleanor Bradford, systems coordinator for the Homeless Action Network of Detroit, says the terms "low-income" and "affordable" are often used "interchangeably." She says that can be frustrating for many Detroiters who are on the hunt for housing that is affordable to them but are also hard-pressed or unable to pay 30% of the metro area's AMI on rent.
"If you're paying more than half of your income just to have a place to lay your head, and that's not including utilities, and that's not including your daily household needs, is it really affordable?" she asks.
The remaining two types of housing are costlier. Workforce housing is generally defined as housing for individuals making 80-120% of the AMI. Market-rate housing is usually the most expensive, as its rents are not tied to the AMI and are driven by whatever amount tenants are willing to pay.
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Steve KossEdward Carrington at The Ribbon, a new development led by his company, Flux City.
"When we talk market-rate housing, that typically is more or less unaffordable, especially when we're talking Detroiters," says Edward Carrington, founder of
Flux City, a Detroit-based development company focused on affordable housing.
Cantrell says discussions of these terms can get into "muddy water" given the "sliding scale" of metro areas' differing AMIs – or even the stark difference between the metro area's median income and Detroit's. Mays agrees. She often describes the housing she works on in terms of the income level of the residents each development is targeting – for instance, families who make less than $45,000 a year.
"I actually try not to use [descriptors like 'affordable' or 'low-income,']" she says. "I try to contextualize them for regular, everyday people."
What does affordable housing look like?
Misconceptions also often arise around what form affordable or low-income housing takes. Rob Lockett, executive director of the
Local Initiatives Support Corporation Detroit, says many people incorrectly assume that "affordable housing is lower-quality." Cantrell says much of that assumption is rooted in a stereotype equating affordable housing with "the projects" – large, ugly, government-built developments. He notes that while such developments still happen, they're uncommon – and the stereotypical vision of them is often specifically associated with housing projects built in communities of color.
"When affordable housing was built for majority white people, a lot of times these projects were actually very, very nice places to live," Cantrell says. "But over time, the image that we get is a much more poor, much more Black and brown image of people living in projects."
Many new affordable housing developments look no different from market-rate developments in Detroit. For example, Carrington's Flux City recently held a grand opening for The Ribbon, a mixed-use development in East English Village whose 18 apartments will all rent to tenants making 80% AMI or less. The development also includes retail and community space.
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Steve KossEdward Carrington in the kitchen of an apartment at The Ribbon.
"A lot of times people think the quality of affordable housing differs from what you see in, let's say, downtown or Midtown Detroit," Carrington says. "But I want to be able to provide top-shelf finishes ... for affordable tenants, in order for them to make sure that they realize that they're not different from anybody else."
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Steve KossAn apartment at The Ribbon.
Affordable housing doesn't always occur in large, multi-family developments. A 2022
Detroit Future City report found that 87% of the city's 42,191 landlords own just one or two properties. Their properties are predominantly single-family homes, and they own over half the rental properties and units in the city. Cantrell and Mays both say that these kinds of landlords and rental properties are strong sources of what's known as naturally occurring affordable housing – units that weren't originally built specifically to be affordable but do fit that definition.
"These are landlords, developers, who have purchased a single-family home or duplex [and] most likely haven't put a whole lot of money into them to keep the rent low," Cantrell says. "So they're able to offer a $700 or $800 rental rate in a lot of neighborhoods."
In reality, Mays says the physical form of affordable housing is far more expansive than the "projects" stereotype.
"It could look like anything," she says.
Who lives in affordable housing?
Perhaps the most bitterly debated element of affordable housing is who it's for. Cantrell says the most common stereotype of an affordable housing resident is "someone who is either unemployed" or "who may not want to work."
"People think of it as a giveaway, almost," he says. "It's like, 'Oh, you know, poor people live in these places.' ... I almost don't want to go down that road of all the negative tropes, but it's the idea that we have of what a poor person looks like in the United States, and usually that is a Black or brown woman."
However, Cantrell says, that idea is "not fair," because "when we're building affordable housing, it's often for people who people might not think of as low-income." Lockett agrees.
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Rob LockettRob Lockett.
"Oftentimes, these individuals are service members to our community," he says. "Police officers, firemen, educators, nuclear families, [and] people that have resided and lived in the community for a very long time oftentimes live in affordable housing just because ... we still are in times where we have very elevated costs for goods and services in our economy."
Mays echoes that sentiment, noting that she "predominantly" houses people "who are getting up and going to work every day."
"I always bring up the example of the paraprofessional in the public school system," she says. "These are people who are working with our children in classrooms. They're there every day. It's a full-time job, but it doesn't pay a lot. If you're lucky, you might make $30,000 [a year]. And so, what do we want to do? Do we want to have housing for that person in the community in which they are serving?"
Mays also emphasizes that some affordable housing residents are indeed unemployed, in many cases due to disability, old age, or other reasons beyond their control. And, she says, "it should be okay for people to say, 'You know what? We're gonna help that person with housing.'" Bradford echoes that sentiment, noting that some affordable housing residents have mental health issues, substance use disorders, or other challenges for which they're often stigmatized. But she emphasizes that housing is "the first thing to address" any of those problems.
"Housing provides hope," she says. "And so once I have hope, I'm able to look at things in a new light. If I'm able to look at things in a new light, my options are unbelievable. ... I can go back to school. I can work again."
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Steve KossA model apartment at The Ribbon.
Lockett says many of the stereotypes and misunderstandings around affordable housing are "harmful" because they can "corner individuals into a bias."
"If, say, I'm Target or Kroger or whatever commercial retail operator, and I have a misconception or preconceived notion about what affordable housing is and [affordable housing residents'] ability to support my products, goods, or services, I may not choose to locate my development or my project next to affordable housing," he says. "So we've got to do the work of dispelling some of those myths."
Mays says that beyond the confusion, misconceptions, and assumptions, the argument for affordable housing is a simple one.
"Most Americans understand the concept of it being not right to get up every day and go to work and not be able to afford to live in your community, or to be a retired senior and to not be able to live in the place where you spent most of your life," she says. "So I think people just get that, and that really kind of dices through the pejorative nature of some of these terms."
Patrick Dunn is the managing editor of Concentrate and a freelance writer and editor. He lives in Ypsilanti.
Edward Carrington/The Ribbon photos by Steve Koss. All other photos courtesy of the subjects.