The New Housing Crisis

The most basic definition of housing is shelter. However, housing has always been more than four walls and a roof. A home is the building block of any community, a foundation for other basic rights such as voting and education. For many people in the Oakland/Berkeley area, this fundamental need is rapidly becoming unobtainable. This new housing crisis, the inability to afford where you live, affects all income levels and demographics, but is especially decimating the African American community.

One only has to look at West Oakland to see an example of the rapidly changing landscape. West Oakland served as a bastion of black art and commerce in the 30’s and 40’s as hundreds of blacks moved to the area to work. Now the area is virtually unrecognizable to long-time residents, and often unaffordable. This wave of change is spreading to other parts of the city traditionally home to black and brown populations. And while improvements to neighborhoods and infrastructure are always good, many are worrying that these benefits come at too high a price and too late for those that have to leave due to the rapid increase in rents and home prices.

Since the peak of the foreclosure crisis in 2008, both home prices and rents in Berkeley and Oakland have soared exponentially. The median home price in Berkeley is $1,000,000 and in Oakland $675,000, and those numbers are expected to continue to rise. The average rent in Oakland is currently $2,800, meaning a person making minimum wage would have to work 60 hours a week solely to afford rent. More and more working class people are moving out to the outskirts of the Bay Area and beyond. Since the year 2000, the African American population in Oakland has dropped by 25% and the current African American population in Berkeley hovers at 8%.

This year the focus of our Financial Fortitude will be housing affordability. We will present tools and resources to the community as well as engage elected officials and the private sector to lobby for more affordability and more protections for tenants and home owners. We as a community must bring all our attention, resources, and collective power to make sure our children can call this area home. The richness of our history, the stability of our community, and the wealth of our future can be found on the front porches of our parents and grandparents, those that migrated here for better opportunities. Home ownership, safe dwellings, and affordable housing cannot become a dream deferred.