Suburban Housing Costs Are Stretching Families to the Brink

Former BLL intern Margaret Hennessy reported for the Better Life Lab blog on Slate on the challenges of finding affordable housing in the increasingly competitive suburban housing market.

In Suburban Slide, the Better Life Lab explores the changing face of poverty in the United States and how the symbol of American prosperity became the new place of poverty. In a six-part series, we explore what this means for Americans’ work-life conflicts and American identity in general.

“I was surprised by the lack of empathy,” Carrie Merino said. “I would say, ‘I’m a single mom with three kids and I have a job so I can pay the rent. I just don’t have three times the amount of income you require to qualify.’ ”

In May 2015, after her divorce, Merino moved back to her hometown of Scappoose, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, with her three kids, ages 4, 11, and 14. Like any cross-country move, this ate up a lot of her already limited resources and credit. At first, she didn’t qualify for housing because she hadn’t lined up her job yet, but also because she didn’t have three times the rent price (rent plus first and last months of the lease). “Most places were charging at least $1,000 at that time,” she said, recalling a host of conversations like the one she recounted. “And there was no way I was going to make that.” So, for the first month back they lived in an RV on her grandfather’s land.