Oakland County's housing affordability problem is growing. How can we solve it?

This story is part of a series that highlights the challenges and solutions around housing in Southeast Michigan and is made possible through underwriting support from the Oakland County (Region L) Regional Housing Partnership. 

Jamillyah Palmer had always dreamed of being a homeowner, but feared she'd never be able to afford it. Until recently, she and her children, 8-year-old Dallas and 3-year-old Dayton, were living in Section 8 housing in Clarkston. But Palmer's dream came true earlier this year when the Pontiac Housing Commission chose Palmer to move into a Pontiac home that the commission had recently rebuilt.

Palmer, who works for the U.S. Postal Service, will pay 30% of her monthly income to live in the house. She is also working on eventually buying her home outright. Palmer says she's "so thankful" for the opportunity to get a "brand-new, renovated home," and her children have enjoyed having a backyard to play in for the first time in their lives.

"[Dallas] tells me still everyday, 'I just love our new house,'" she says. "We'll just go sit on the deck and enjoy it. It's definitely life-changing for us."
Doug CoombeDallas and Dayton Palmer play on a trampoline in their backyard.
While Palmer's story has a happy ending, she was chosen out of hundreds of other applicants who participated in a lottery system for the house that is now hers. And countless other Oakland County residents are still struggling with the same affordability challenges Palmer faced. As broader economic challenges have exacerbated a pre-existing affordability problem in the county, leaders in the government, nonprofit, and for-profit sectors are coming together to make housing more attainable for all county residents.

Oakland County's affordability problem

Oakland County is known for its prosperity on both a state and national level. Its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022 was about $127 billion, greater than that of 14 states and the 30th highest nominal GDP of all U.S. counties. The county also represents 20% of Michigan's overall GDP. But the benefits of that prosperity don't extend to all residents.
Madiha TariqMadiha Tariq.
"Prosperity, in many ways, can be a double-edged sword," says Oakland County Deputy Executive Madiha Tariq. "Yes, Oakland County is considered generally affluent. But that doesn't mean that there are not folks in this county that are cost-burdened because of housing."

The state of Michigan's Housing Data Portal shows that Oakland County's median rent outpaced the state's median rent by 20% from 2012 to 2022, the most recent year for which data are available. In 2022, 43% of Oakland County renters were cost-burdened – which, by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) definition, means they spent more than 30% of their income on housing. Just under half of them were severely cost-burdened, meaning they spent over half their income on housing. Meanwhile, housing supply has cratered. 20,683 Oakland County homes (3.9% of total homes in the county) were vacant and available in 2012, but that number declined to 12,530 homes (2.3% of total homes) by 2022.

Tariq says there historically has not been "enough investment made to diversify the kind of housing that Oakland County has to offer" and the county is currently playing "catchup" as a result. Ahmad Taylor, executive director of the Pontiac Housing Commission, puts it more bluntly. He cites a 2018 HUD letter that found the county noncompliant with HUD funding requirements that no one be denied assistance based on their race or national origin. Taylor says housing policy in the county has changed since then under County Executive Dave Coulter, who took office after L. Brooks Patterson's 27-year tenure as executive ended with his death in 2019. But Taylor agrees with Tariq that there's still a lot of catchup to be done.
Ahmad TaylorAhmad Taylor.
"When you try to ramp it up just recently, over the next five years, you're only going to see only so much change," he says. "... How do you revert?"

Complicating the issue is a national housing affordability crisis, driven by high mortgage rates, low inventory, and lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kirsten ElliottKirsten Elliott."During the recession, entry-level housing, multi-family housing, most of that just went to almost like a standstill while property and land costs went up," says Kirsten Elliott, president of the Troy-based Community Housing Network (CHN). "Where builders could get yield and where they would be able to make profit was really those ... McMansions."

Even when affordable housing developments do begin to get off the ground, they're often slowed or stopped altogether by a variety of factors. Elliott says that a "not in my backyard," or "NIMBY," attitude from some residents means that "many times a minority voice has an outsized power over what that community is going to look like or what will be built." Local zoning regulations, which require single-family housing in many neighborhoods, limit developers' ability to build new multi-family housing. And the most common funding source for affordable developments – federal low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC), administered by the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) – aren't enough to fill the county's need.
Chris LaGrandChris LaGrand.
"The resources don't tend to go as far in Oakland, because costs are just higher there," says Chris LaGrand, senior vice president and corporate counsel at Woda Cooper Companies, which has completed two affordable developments in Pontiac.

The who, what, and where of affordable housing

A common stereotype associates affordable housing with extremely low-income individuals. But Elliott says that, especially since the pandemic, those seeking affordable housing occupy an increasingly broad swath of the socioeconomic spectrum. Dee Dee Ohara Blizard, president of the Southfield-based Greater Metropolitan Association of Realtors, agrees. 

"It's really a diverse range of people who are looking for affordable housing right now in Oakland County," she says. "That's your teachers, your health care workers, your service industry employees, and other essential workers."
Dee Dee Ohara BlizardDee Dee Ohara Blizard.
The most recent U.S. Census American Community Survey data show that the county's median household income is $92,015, meaning that the cost-burden threshold for a median-income household would be $27,604 a year or $2,300 a month. But Blizard points out that those kinds of housing costs are untenable for, say, paramedics, who make well below the median income in the $40,000-$50,000 range. Older adults are feeling the pinch as well. As Michigan and the U.S. in general brace for elders to make up an unprecedented proportion of our population, the state Housing Data Portal shows that nearly two-thirds of Oakland County's senior renters are cost-burdened. Tariq says that this broadening demand calls for an equally broad range of affordable housing types.

"This includes shelter beds. It includes permanent supportive housing, affordable rental housing, affordable for-sale housing, starter homes, smaller for-sale or rental units for empty nesters, and even affordable senior housing, which would include independent living, assisted living, memory care, and skilled care facilities," she says. "We just have to think about the ecosystem of housing and the broad spectrum of all options that can serve the need of the entire community."

County housing advocates say solving the affordability crisis requires a similarly broad approach to the county's geography, rather than just focusing on particularly low-income areas or major job centers. Taylor says that "every area" of the county needs more affordable housing. Clay Cooper, senior vice president and director of development at Woda Cooper, agrees.
Clay CooperClay Cooper.
"I think you could name almost any area in Oakland County that would benefit from it, where that workforce in that community isn't having to commute 45 minutes to an hour to find rents that they can afford," Cooper says.

"Nothing's off the table"

With a hefty challenge at hand, Oakland County stakeholders envision numerous solutions to increase affordable housing. Most recently, a broad coalition of Oakland County housing stakeholders has formed the county's Regional Housing Partnership (RHP) to develop solutions. The RHP is one of 15 partnerships across the state of Michigan, funded by MSHDA to address local housing challenges in keeping with Michigan's 2022 Statewide Housing Plan. The Alliance for Housing, CHN, the Pontiac Housing Commission, and the Pontiac Community Foundation are the "quad lead" organizations heading up the Region L RHP, serving Oakland County. They've drafted numerous other housing players in the county to help advance their goals. The RHP's three priorities are preventing and ending homelessness, increasing housing stock, and improving communication and education.

"We had for-profit developers, nonprofit developers, banks, individual citizens, just a whole cross section of folks," Elliott says. "And after lots of discussion and lots of work, we came to these three goals from the statewide housing plan, and they all are interconnected."

A state LIHTC is one of the key policies for which the RHP hopes to advocate. LaGrand says such a credit would allow for the production of more affordable units and help alleviate some of the high demand for the federal LIHTC program. As Ohio, Indiana, and other states have created their own credits, LaGrand says Michigan is becoming "more of an anomaly."

"What you're going to see over the next five to 10 years is more and more states are going to adopt these credits," he says. "The industry is focused on execution of these programs, and believes that in states that have very robust and successful state credit programs, the production really does increase."

RHP members also hope to advocate for rezoning to allow for more affordable housing. Elliott points to Minneapolis, which has eliminated single-family zoning among many other housing-related policy reforms, as a good example of the potential of this approach in Oakland County. Rents in the city have remained nearly flat, and homelessness has decreased, even as rents and homelessness have risen in the rest of Minnesota.

Taylor puts it more simply for the city of Pontiac: "If we don't rezone, we don't get additional affordable housing."

"Most of our city is ... zoned for something that was initially in place for the 1940s or the 1930s, when we had a carriage manufacturer, when we were manufacturing stuff for the military," he says. " ... In our city right now we're dealing with an outdated master plan from 2014, and we're still updating it currently. But even in 2014, it still wasn't updated to the form where it should have been."

To accomplish all these goals, Elliott says "changing hearts and minds" is crucial for the RHP. Tariq echoes that sentiment, saying it's important to listen to, and have constructive conversations with, those who might say "not in my backyard."

"They are thinking about people who are going to be a burden to the community," she says. "But I'm telling you that affordable housing is a way for us to give back to our local community heroes like our firefighters, our nursing assistants, our grocery store workers, our Amazon delivery people."
Doug CoombeDallas, Jamillyah, and Dayton Palmer in their new home in Pontiac.
These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg as local housing advocates pursue solutions to the county's affordability problem. Other potential approaches include working to reduce developers' costs, advocating for a statewide housing millage, providing better wraparound housing services to affordable housing residents, and more.

"In my opinion, nothing's off the table," Blizard says. "Nothing's off the table when it comes to being able to provide homes for people in our community."

Patrick Dunn is the managing editor of Concentrate and a freelance writer and editor. He lives in Ypsilanti.

Jamillyah Palmer photos by Doug Coombe. All other photos courtesy of the subjects.