Go to almost any city, and you’ll find people complaining about two things: how the weather is always changing, and the fact that there is no affordable housing.

Affordable housing is defined as housing that costs 30 percent or less of an individual or family’s income for rent or mortgage payments.

Nationally, the number of households spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs, typically referred to as “rent-burdened,” has approached 40 percent in recent years. In 2016, about 38.1 million households fell into this category, according to Harvard University’s report, “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2018.”

In Bowling Green, about 45 percent of the city’s estimated 15,800 renters are rent-burdened, and about 28 percent of its estimated 10,600 homeowners are cost-burdened by mortgage payments.

With average household sizes of 2.37 and 2.45, respectively, the housing burden could affect about 24,000 city residents, based on the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

“Affordable housing is a very complex issue that a lot of communities are struggling with, especially in communities with a lot of growth and investment,” said Brent Childers, director of Bowling Green’s Department of Neighborhood and Community Services. “It’s an uphill battle.”

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Directly converse to the county and the country, Bowling Green has an estimated 60 percent share of renters versus a 40 percent share of homeowners – partially due to the presence of Western Kentucky University, according to Childers.

With parents pitching in, college students boost the market cost beyond what’s feasible for many families – including the estimated almost 30 percent of city residents living below the federal poverty level.

“This poses an additional challenge,” Childers said.

ApartmentList.com estimates Bowling Green’s median two-bedroom rent at $790 a month.

Home prices aren’t any better. Statewide, home costs are nearly three times higher than median income, according to advocacy research group Prosperity Now Scorecard.

At the end of October, the reported median sale price for homes in Bowling Green was $157,500, and the average sale price was $185,385, excluding sales by owner, according to Meg Manning, executive director of the Realtor Association of Southern Kentucky.

An average Bowling Green income “is not enough to secure a middle-class lifestyle,” according to Anna Baumann, communications director at the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

A two-adult, two-child family would need an annual income of $77,000 to securely cover housing, transportation, taxes, food and child care, according to Baumann, but the median household income in Bowling Green reported by the U.S. Census Bureau is $39,901.

To squeeze by on the bare minimum, the two adults in this family model would need to collectively earn $30 an hour, or $23 an hour with one adult working and one adult covering child care, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator.

“Those numbers give us a good sense of the problem. For folks to make ends meet, they need more than what they’re getting,” Baumann said.

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In the past five decades, the economy expanded, income inequality increased and federal housing assistance declined.

From the late 1940s to early 1970s, hourly wages increased in tandem with the U.S. economy. Then the pattern shifted: hourly compensation staggered to a slow crawl while productivity and corporate profits continued to climb, according to a 2018 Economic Policy Institute report titled “The Productivity-Pay Gap.”

A minimum wage relative to productivity – which has increased by about 77 percent since 1973 – would be more than $20 an hour, according to the report. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and hasn’t been increased in nearly a decade.

The largest share of economic growth goes to the very top. That’s true in the nation, and that’s true in Bowling Green.

Owning about 14 percent of the city’s wealth, the top 1 percent of Bowling Green residents generated 15.5 times more than the bottom 99 percent in 2015, with an average annual salary of $570,217, according to another recent Economic Policy Institute report titled “The new gilded age.”

Meanwhile, the average annual income of the bottom 99 percent in Bowling Green was $36,787.

During the same time as the productivity-wage paradigm shift, the topic of affordable housing started gaining national attention. In 1969, Congress defined housing affordability as monthly costs not exceeding 25 percent of household income – eventually changing to its current standard to reduce the amount of money the federal government spent on housing subsidies during the 1981 budget crisis, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts report released earlier this year.

For many, the American dream of a stable job and home with a white picket fence is merely an anachronism, an optical illusion that extends further out of reach after every student debt payment, medical bill and housing price increase.

When prompted on Twitter, a few Bowling Green residents chimed in to share their thoughts on affordable housing locally.

“Two adults with bachelor degrees and good jobs … there is literally nothing decent for a family that we can afford!” wrote Jessi, @jessi_clark.

Shelley, @shellnjosh, said she had to settle on a “double wide” instead of a house because she couldn’t afford the $100,000-plus home prices.

“The words bowling green and affordable housing don’t go together,” wrote Lance Bray, @lance_bray.

Michael Hutchinson, @MHutchinson84, seems to think the market will crash soon and make things affordable again.

“Homes popping up like weeds … but to the tune of $300,000 and not many banks give a homeowners loan for less than 20% down. I don’t see how folks survive Warren County,” wrote Jenn, @ACSMUSICMAMA.

Jordan Talley, @MrsJordanTalley, explained that student loans got in the way of her family obtaining a home loan. “We will forever be renting,” she wrote.

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To help in the affordable housing crisis, the government offers rental assistance through Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers and public housing.

In Bowling Green, the Neighborhood and Community Services department manages the use of vouchers, which supplement family income to cover the cost of housing.

The city has 616 vouchers in use, and, as of December, 968 people on a waiting list for vouchers, according to Childers.

“The challenges of Section 8 is that there’s always high demand,” he said, and “the demand is greater than the resource.”

Bowling Green’s high percentage of renters increases the average cost of rent and decreases people’s ability to use vouchers. Oftentimes, when people qualify and receive a voucher, they’re unable to locate a unit within the market place.

“Landlords and property owners don’t feel like they need to accept Section 8 vouchers,” Childers said.

The other option is public housing. The Housing Authority of Bowling Green manages the city’s nearly 600 public housing units, and staff emphasized the need for improved market conditions.

For low-income individuals making $10 or $12 an hour, there’s a severely limited supply of available places to live, according to Katie Miller, the special projects director at the Housing Authority of Bowling Green.

“A lot of barriers that many of our participants face is that they don’t have down payment assistance,” Miller said.

School or medical loans often prevent people from becoming preapproved, so the Housing Authority aims to help people overcome these barriers through credit and budget counseling services.

“Some it may take six months, some it may take five years,” Miller said.

Despite seemingly insuperable odds, the city is trying a few unique solutions of its own.

The city contracted with Ohio-based real estate firm, Bowen National Research, to analyze the housing situation in Bowling Green and offer insights and solutions – a process that hasn’t happened in a decade, around the time of the Great Recession and nationwide housing crisis.

It will analyze variables such as the gaps in affordability, the types of units the city is offering versus the types of units the city should be building, the actual amount of available units and whether the wages match the rent market.

“There are a lot of market influences that affect the cost of housing,” Childers said.

That research is expected to be completed by April, and the city will in turn share the information with builders, developers and property owners.

“Then we’ll develop solutions,” Childers said.

In the meantime, the city is already implementing one solution: make areas of Bowling Green more livable and attractive, one neighborhood at a time.

“Instead of a broad brush, we’re trying to be strategic,” Childers said.

They started with downtown. In the Reservoir Hill neighborhood, the city invested millions into improving the neighborhood’s aesthetics, functionality and way of life. To accomplish this, the city repaired old sidewalks, built new sidewalks, secured grants for exterior rehab projects on 120 properties and installed new features like trash cans, decorated stop sign poles and a transit shelter.

Now, the city is investing money into the area between Glen Lily, Old Barren River and Morgantown roads called Census Track 112. The city has or will build 6,000 feet of pathways through Lampkin Park, obtain exterior rehab grants for about 100 homes, create 1,200 feet of pedestrian pathway in Pedigo Park and create 3,500 feet of new sidewalk.

The end goal is to make areas with more (relatively) affordable housing more attractive to potential residents.

As part of the project, the city partnered with Habitat for Humanity to create “Durbin Estates,” a mini neighborhood on Glen Lily Road that will eventually boast 44 homes. The city’s $500,000 contribution will help build about 22 of those homes.

That project began in 2011, and might continue through 2022 or 2023, according to Rod Goodman, the executive director at Habitat for Humanity.

That’s because the work is completed only as the funds become available – and when the strictly volunteer team is available to work.

“We work really hard to do our work without going into debt,” Goodman said, employing a policy of “practice what you preach.”

Through this project, Goodman hopes that 44 more families will have the foundation to create a healthier, balanced life.

If you’re spending half of your monthly income on housing, then you don’t have any extra dollars to spend on anything else, such as investing in your child’s education or increasing their ability to find better employment. And if you’re working multiple jobs, you won’t have the time to invest in your kids, Goodman said.

Instead, affordable housing would “give them that place to start and to build on those resources,” he said.

He gave the example of a former Habitat for Humanity occupant. At 8 years old, Kathy moved into a Habitat home with her seven-person family from a one-bedroom trailer. Now 25, Kathy is a marketing manager and recently got married in front of her childhood home. Her siblings also found successful careers in medical and engineering fields. “It broke the cycle of poverty for that family,” Goodman said.

Although 44 homes might not be much, it could create a ripple effect of greater financial stability for more people.

“(Affordable housing) is good for the community. It stabilizes the community,” Goodman said.

With these combined efforts, and the reality of capacity and resources, Childers feels this is the best method of improving the city – which will more than likely continue to grow.

“If we want to effect change, it’s going to take a long time,” Childers said.