• Posts
  • RSS
  • ◂◂RSS
  • Contact

  • Interpreting Affordable Housing

    September 9th, 2022
    housing
    In describing affordable housing you'll often see a project described as "60% AMI", which can be confusing:

    how is 60% of median income affordable?NUMTOT comment

    If you think that "60% AMI" housing charges 60% of the area median income, I agree that doesn't sound affordable! The problem is, "affordable housing" (and "60% of area median income") as an improper noun, a technical term with a defined meaning that differs from how we normally use the words.

    When housing is described as "affordable", that means it costs 30% of some specific income. If it's a "60% AMI" unit, that means it's affordable to someone making 60% of the area median income. For example, a 60% AMI unit in an area with a median income of $100k would be 60% * 30% * $100k/y or $18k/y, which is $1500/month. A 30% AMI unit would be half that, at $750/month. If you don't know about the factor of 30% thing you end up thinking all this housing is ~3x more expensive!

    That said, this is a mildly silly way to do it: percentages of a median rarely make sense, and the right way to do this is probably with percentiles. Instead of targeting affordable housing at, say, the 60% of median income, we should target a 30th-percentile income. This is much more robust to changes in the shape of the income distribution, especially in cases where areas get into some sort of bimodal situation where a bit more than half the residents are making a lot and a smaller but significant number are making much less.

    Comment via: facebook, lesswrong

    Recent posts on blogs I like:

    Cycling Injuries Analysis in DC

    I looked at a few years’ worth of data for DC (where I live) to try to figure out how risky cycling is here.

    via Home May 19, 2023

    Who is nature good for?

    Not necessarily good for the fish. The post Who is nature good for? appeared first on Otherwise.

    via Otherwise May 8, 2023

    Some mistakes I made as a new manager

    the trough of zero dopamine • managing the wrong amount • procrastinating on hard questions • indefinitely deferring maintenance • angsting instead of asking

    via benkuhn.net April 23, 2023

    more     (via openring)


  • Posts
  • RSS
  • ◂◂RSS
  • Contact