Appalachia has been experiencing a large influx of unprecedented growth due to a number of causes, from the impacts of climate change in the south and west as well as a relatively low average cost of housing.
However, the benefits of said housing are being diminished by outside influences at an alarming rate. Trends indicate that, over the last five years, rental prices have doubled.
“The average rent in the Knoxville Metro FMR Area in February 2023 was $1,606/month (~984 SqF) (source: rentcafe.com). For that rent to be affordable (30% of income), that means someone working for minimum wage must work 170.4 hours/week.” ( City of Knoxville Housing and Development Dept May 2023)
As the median price of rentals continues to rise, the number of people who can’t afford rent rises as well. Thus, this inflation of costs continues the process of pricing out tenants for the benefit of external companies.
The impetus for this article is the recent developments at the Tanglewood Apartments and the implications that caused external “investors” to take advantage of Tennessee’s lax rental policies.
Leadership has an interest in raising these prices in order to increase taxable income. A perfect example of this is the new baseball stadium being built in the Knoxville Old City presently.
Despite our city’s other requirements, entertainment and business are paramount.
As rural cities have dwindled, there’s been an upsurge in people looking for affordable housing. This is especially true through Appalachia in Kentucky and West Virginia.
From a lack of builders to a rise in materials, the cost of building has gone up substantially. Housing has become a scarce commodity in Knoxville.
Interview with Erin Read, Executive Director, Knoxville-Knox County Office of Housing Stability
What are the current plans to expand housing opportunities in Knoxville?
There are over 3,200 rental units currently being constructed on the private market in the Knoxville metro area, which is much needed and will take some of the pressure off. But we still need more housing of all types in order to ease the crisis.
Our Public Housing Authority KCDC manages and rents more than 3,700 units and distributes 4,000 Section 8 vouchers, and they are seeking ways to expand access to housing for low-income individuals and families.
They just broke ground on Liberty Place, a supportive housing development for veterans. The Transforming Western initiative will add 283 new units of affordable and market-rate housing to the Western Heights site over the next five years.
Why are we reaching this point of unstable development?
The Knoxville metro area is seeing a severe housing shortage. Part of the reason is that new construction never really recovered from the 2008 global financial crisis. We’ve been underbuilding since that time. It’s a perfect storm because higher mortgage rates are creating a lock-in effect where homeowners with low interest loans are very wary of selling and taking on a higher interest loan, and we also have an influx of migration from other places in the US with very high cost of living. These trends are being seen in other communities too, but Knoxville is more severely impacted than most.
See:
(https://www.etnrealtors.com/state-of-housing-2023/ )
(https://nlihc.org/housing-needs-by-state/tennessee )
And is there a plan to protect indigent clients from the onslaught of extensive heat and cold fronts from climate change?
When temperatures are extreme (below 32° in winter and above 90° in summer), Knox Area Rescue Ministries, The Salvation Army, and Volunteer Ministry Center enact a White Flag policy. During White Flag conditions, these providers encourage all people experiencing homelessness to seek shelter indoors.
Programs relax rules to allow individuals to come inside for the day or night, even if these individuals might not be allowed in the program under other conditions. In addition, providers create overflow space to ensure that anyone who wants to come indoors can do so. However, even this policy does not create enough space for everyone who is homeless to be sheltered, and there are many reasons why some individuals would not be able to tolerate entering these established shelters.
During last winter’s dangerous cold snap at Christmas, the governments of both the City of Knoxville and Knox County partnered to set up an ad-hoc warming tent near the Salvation Army on Broadway.
While this likely saved some lives, it wasn’t ideal, so a group of service providers, including KARM, Volunteer Ministry Center, Community Action Committee, and the Salvation Army, are working with the Knoxville-Knox County Emergency Management Agency (KEMA) and the Office of Housing Stability on a plan for 24-hour warming centers distributed throughout the city and county, which would be activated in the event of extreme cold.
The community-wide hot weather emergency response plan is already largely able to accommodate people experiencing homelessness because extreme heat happens during the day, when existing public facilities are typically already open and can be made available to everyone who, regardless of housing status, needs to come inside where air conditioning is available during the heat of the day.
Emergency response plans are constantly being updated and improved, and KEMA is currently working with multiple partners to add a map of public water sources and other features to the hot weather emergency response plan.
Because extreme cold has greater implications regarding the need for overnight shelter when public buildings and facilities are typically closed, a separate plan is being developed for winter.
Solutions
While the most obvious solution might seem like building more housing, that compounds a weak infrastructure.
Construction and redevelopment of rural areas could alleviate the over-wrought housing market. Reintroducing public train infrastructure, as suggested here, could also allow for a rural workforce to develop urban areas and improve local and urban economic outcomes.
Fortunately, there are communities actively trying to develop “middle” and affordable housing. Some are met with resentment. However, others are successfully completed with assistance from the city, such as the Inskip Flats.
It might be possible with a Community land trust model, as Lindsey Jaramenko wrote about in her article The Housing Crisis in Knoxville:
“The community land trust (CLT) is a non-profit which holds land in a trust, overseen by a Board of Directors, consisting of residents of the CLT, residents of the greater community where the CLT resides, and experts and other stakeholders. The CLT acquires land through various sources, like city-owned property, private donors, community foundations, and federal housing subsidies.”
However, Tennessee greatly limits the ability of anyone to maintain rent-controlled property.
It is possible that the state government repeal the 2021 Tennessee Code Title 66 – Property Chapter 35 prohibition on rent control and allow cities to help directly control the affordability of housing, such that new purchasers can’t come in and double rental prices while promising improvements that current tenants don’t ask for, such that they can make a higher profit.
Or as the East Tennessee Economic Development Agency puts it: “DKA is putting more of its resources behind attracting downtown residents, which will lead to more retail options and more downtown employment, DKA marketing director Robin Thomas said.”
This is generally the line that any pro-high-end developer will give you: “Why focus on the development of the laborers’ housing when you can artificially inflate the economy while market interest is alive?”
However, as we can see with other cities, this logic is taken to extremes, such as Los Angeles. The problems with housing expand exponentially. And that’s not taking into account the population that already takes shelter under bridges and in hidden enclaves.
To most developers, it is an easy choice: a higher return on investment for labor and materials and a higher profit margin for investors.
There’s still a very real human cost to top-heavy development. Places that might have once been marginally affordable become unrealistically expensive, and we’re at the point where renting is untenable.
According to the City of Knoxville Housing and Development Department, we are about to reach that point. Currently, we have people working in Knoxville who are unable to afford an apartment. They live in cars or on the street. Meanwhile, Grade-A apartments dominate downtown, with 400 new units under construction. This is not a new development, as housing prices have increased for both renters and homeowners.
If we rebuild rural structures of healthcare and education and invest in revitalizing rural areas, we might have opportunities where everyone has a place to live. It is, however, more likely that there will be further migrations to cities as already weak infrastructure breaks further.
So we should develop equitable housing in our urban areas while there is still space to build it.
