Twelve years ago, Victor and Brenda Flores moved to Rhode Island with a new baby and a big dream -- they wanted to buy a house.
It's been a long 12 years.
Together the Flores worked and saved and had more children and hoped that the five jobs between them would help bankroll the cash they'd need to buy a starter house in Woonsocket. Meanwhile, Victor found himself taking longer routes around the city in search of for-sale signs; Brenda was fantasizing about how she'd decorate her daughter's room.
Then reality hit.
"We started really looking for houses five years ago. Back then, for $150,000, you could get a huge house with five bedrooms and all sorts of things," Brenda Flores said. "At the time, we couldn't afford $150,000, so we just kept looking. Now look at it."
"It" is the housing market in Woonsocket. And she's right. In 2000, the median price of a house in this city was $105,000; today it's more than doubled, at $218,000. And that's in Woonsocket, one of the least expensive communities statewide.
Factoring in income from Victor's jobs as a driver for Landmark Medical Center, a home health aide and a jewelry repairman and Brenda's jobs as a home daycare provider and as an employee with the Arc of Northern Rhode Island, they figured their combined income of $52,000 a year would still be enough to afford something small. But they struggled to find anything for under $250,000 that wasn't riddled with mold or lead paint.
The Flores' tale is a familiar one in the Blackstone Valley. In their case, it's also a tale with a happy ending. Next week, the couple and their three children will close on their first house -- a three-bedroom cape for $224,000. They know they'll need to stretch to afford the $1,587 monthly payments for their mortgage, insurance, and taxes. They'll be spending about 36 percent of their monthly income to do so, more than the government's recommended 30-percent share.
But the house will be all theirs and for the Flores, who are in their early 30s, that's worth whatever sacrifices it will take. "We just wanted to give our kids a place where they could grow up and say, 'This is our house,'" Brenda Flores said recently. Because of their relatively low income, the Flores qualified for a zero downpayment, and 6.7-percent interest on a 30-year mortgage.
All across the Blackstone Valley young families have watched with trepidation as housing prices have skyrocketed. When they say they're looking for affordable housing, they're not talking about low-income or Section 8 facilities either, they're talking about reasonably priced starter homes. And unlike the Flores, many have found they've been priced out of the market altogether.
According to the Rhode Island Housing study released last week by HousingWorksRI, a coalition of housing advocates, three of the most affordable communities in Rhode Island are in the Blackstone Valley: Woonsocket, Central Falls and Pawtucket. But these communities are also home to some of the lowest wage-earners statewide, so rising costs here can feel that much more devastating.
In Pawtucket and Woonsocket, the already expensive housing market has seen prices bounced higher by the recent influx of commuters from the Boston area, housing officials say.
"People who are priced out of the Boston market are looking to Rhode Island's border communities," said Barney Heath, Pawtucket's assistant director of planning and redevelopment. "What they can get for $300,000 here is markedly better than what they can get in any community around Boston."
The problem with that influx is that it has driven up housing prices in these communities, making local families less and less able to keep up with an already out-of-sight market.
A quick survey of the Statewide Multiple Listing Service this week showed that the least expensive single-family house currently on the market in Pawtucket costs $169,000. Not bad, you're thinking? Think again. For $169,000 what you get is more of a free-standing apartment -- a one-bedroom "cottage" with few amenities. In Central Falls, the cheapest house is selling for $159,900, and in Woonsocket, $185,000. Together, these cities have just 16 single-family houses on the market for less than $200,000 as of yesterday.
With housing prices so high, condominiums have become a popular alternative to traditional houses, particularly in Woonsocket and Pawtucket where dozens of old mills have been converted into condos. But many of these units are marketed as "luxury residences," boasting bigger price tags than moderate single-family houses.
At this point, the only truly affordable path to home ownership in the Blackstone Valley is mobile homes. Listed for between $30,000 and $150,000, they are a strikingly less expensive option, though some would argue a less desirable one.
In the region's suburban towns -- Cumberland, Lincoln and North Smithfield -- the housing crisis is no less troublesome. In Lincoln, the Blackstone Valley's most expensive community, you'll need to make in excess of $100,000 a year to afford a median-priced home. In fact, there isn't a single house on the market in Lincoln now for less than $229,000, according to the multiple listing Web site.
"What I keep hearing again and again, and it's an unfortunate situation, is that kids who grew up in Lincoln can't afford to stay in Lincoln," Town Planner Albert V. Ranaldi Jr. said.
When families like these find themselves priced out of their own community, Ranaldi and others say, they tend to move to less expensive ones nearby. Lincoln residents are heading to Cumberland and Cumberland residents are going to Woonsocket, where they can still be close to their families and jobs, but at more reasonable prices.
If that sounds like a reasonable solution, it's not. The more local residents move to urban centers, advocates say, the more prices rise in the poorest communities, where families are least able to cope with increases.
RENTING: For families in both urban and suburban communities, the answer to ever-increasing house prices is apartment rentals. But even apartments are becoming too expensive.
Basil and Angelique Dioh know all about the high cost of rent in the Blackstone Valley. It has them wondering why they ever moved to Rhode Island in the first place.
The couple, who immigrated to Pawtucket from their native Senegal five years ago, came to the United States as many foreign nationals do -- dreaming of a nice yard and a future for their children.
Knowing they wouldn't be able to afford to buy a house for some time, the Diohs and their baby, Kathia, settled for renting. But they soon found that Basil's $30,000-a-year salary as a machinist wasn't enough to cover Pawtucket rents. Forced to downsize, the couple moved to a smaller place in Central Falls, where rents are often less expensive.
The move posed its own problems, however. Central Falls, they found, was crowded and sometimes noisy. They missed Pawtucket's playgrounds and the short jaunt to Roger Williams Park where they liked to take Kathia to the zoo.
Searching for what they hoped was a compromise, the Diohs moved to Woonsocket, where the rents were a bit higher than Central Falls, but the quality of life seemed a little better, they said.
They settled into their apartment in the city's Fairmount section for $475 a month only to learn that Angelique was pregnant again, this time with twins. They had no choice but to move again. That was in 2003. In the two years since, the Diohs had twin daughters, moved into their fourth apartment in four years and saw their rent jump to $745 a month.
Forget their dream of owning a house, the Diohs started believing they'd run out of options when it came to renting an apartment.
As with so many local families, the Diohs eventually found help from a nonprofit agency, in their case the Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation. Officials there helped the Diohs find a more affordable, better-maintained apartment for just $475 a month. They even invited Basil to join their homebuyer's class, so he could learn more about saving money and what it would take to buy that dream house.
Sitting in their well-kept WNDC apartment last week, the Diohs said they're hoping to move into one of the corporation's newly built houses sometime next year. Like all WNDC's single-family houses, the one they are hoping to buy will have its construction costs subsidized by state and federal grants, as well as private donations, meaning it could cost the Diohs less than $150,000, well below the median house price in Woonsocket.
In a tough housing market, a helping hand like this is often what makes the difference between paying the rent and putting food on the table. For the luckiest among them, it can also mean a rare chance at homeownership.
But the advocates themselves will tell you it's not enough. WNDC has built and rehabilitated nearly 150 apartments and houses in and around Woonsocket, but it has waiting lists that are years long. The same is true of other housing groups such as the Blackstone Valley Community Action Program (BVCAP) in Pawtucket and Realty Endeavors for Affordable Housing (REACH) in Central Falls. As fast as they establish new housing, they know it's not fast enough.
In the meantime, many families who can't afford to pay rents are "doubling and tripling up," as some officials call it. Multiple families -- often young moms and their children -- are crowding into one- and two-bedroom apartments, hoping landlords won't catch on. Statistics show that last year, 2,250 Blackstone Valley households reported overcrowded living situations.
Eventually, in the poorest urban communities, officials say the choice is bleak, but simple: pay the rent or feed your children. "The thing about housing is, it squeezes everything else," said Vincent Ceglie, executive director of the Blackstone Valley Community Action Program. "Housing is a fixed cost. You've got to have it, there's a bare minimum that you can't go below because of market costs, so you end up cutting back on things like food."
It's that kind of stark choice that housing advocates say has led to what are known as "the new homeless" -- working people who find themselves with nowhere to go, but into local shelters and onto the streets.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING: With the cost of both house buying and renting skyrocketing throughout the region, local cities and towns are busy trying to improve their affordable housing stock to comply with the state's Low and Moderate Income Housing Act, which says each community should be working toward the goal of having 10 percent of its housing qualify as affordable.
For different Blackstone Valley communities, this poses a different challenge. Woonsocket and Central Falls have surpassed that 10-percent threshold and Pawtucket is close behind.
But those figures include housing reserved for the elderly and those with special needs, meaning that families don't always see the benefits when more affordable housing is built. In North Smithfield, not a single one of the town's 263 affordable housing units is earmarked for families, according to Chris Barnett, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation. In Lincoln, just a quarter of the affordable housing is reserved for families and in Cumberland, the figure falls just above 10 percent of the available affordable housing, Barnett said.
So suburban towns are looking toward more creative alternatives to help local families afford to live in their own communities. In accordance with the Housing Act, they've submitted detailed proposals to the state explaining their strategies for increasing affordable housing, including plans for new developments and rehabilitated units.
In Lincoln, for example, Ranaldi said the town is working toward amending its zoning plans to allow homeowners to legally add "in-law apartments" that could house aging parents, freeing up main houses for younger generations, at lower total costs to families.
And if the area's cities look like they've solved their affordable housing crisis by reaching that 10-percent share, advocates warn they have not. As poorer communities, their need for affordable housing is that much greater. Unfortunately, city space is also that much harder to come by.
"We're not going to plunk down 300 units, there's just not room for that," said Barney Heath, of the Pawtucket Planning Department. Even if there were room, Heath acknowledges, ideas about what constitutes "effective" affordable housing have evolved.
The once-popular model of high-rise housing projects is no longer embraced. Instead, communities are turning toward attractive home-ownership developments. Instead of subsidized monthly rents, the building and rehabilitation costs are subsidized (this is true of the Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation's houses), encouraging those in need to invest in their property and in their community.
If finding space for this kind of new model housing is tough in the region's cities, finding a way to overcome affordable-housing stigmas in the suburban areas can be even harder.
"People need to be educated," Lincoln planner Ranaldi said. "Affordable housing of today certainly is not the affordable housing of the '60s and '70s. That was projects-based housing where everyone was on some type of subsidy. The affordable housing of today is more like a helping hand in a really tight market. Sure, residents will be income qualified, but that's it. It's a workforce type of group as opposed to someone who's down on their luck."
But plans are slow to materialize and attitudes are slower to change, Ranaldi and others say. Meanwhile, hardworking local couples such as Basil and Angelique Dioh recognize that even with a helping hand, it may be quite some time before they get a chance to sleep in their own homes.
"I want to be able to see my kids running all over the place," Angelique Dioh said last week, when asked why she'd like to own her own house.
"It's more than that though; it's about being able to say, 'This is mine. We did this. This is ours.'"
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