Allison Plyer is chief demographer and co-Deputy Director of the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. Its latest report Housing Production Needs: Three Scenarios for New Orleans was funded by a grant from the Community Revitalization Program at the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
Some folks use data to prove the dire need for more low-income housing in New Orleans. Others use data to demonstrate we have too much housing. What happens if both are true? Well, that’s where the Data Center comes in. We sort through a mountain of data to help you understand how two seemingly contradictory realities can be true, and guide you through thinking about what to do about it. We can do this because we present data that’s neutral, not designed to simply prove one point or another.
The Data Center, in collaboration with the Urban Institute, recently released a report entitled Housing Production Needs: Three Scenarios for New Orleans.
Here’s the skinny: there are too many units—market rate units, that is. There aren’t enough units that are affordable for the city’s many low wage workers. And as future workers arrive some market rate units will fill up, but only if jobs pay high enough wages.
There are currently 45,000 households in New Orleans paying unaffordable rents relative to their income-plus 11,500 homeless people. With those kinds of facts, it’s just impossible to claim that New Orleans doesn’t need any more affordable housing.
Make no mistake, demand for subsidized rents is still quite high. It’s demand for market rate rentals that has weakened. So what do you do when market rate vacancies are rising but many people still can’t afford housing? Well, you’re just going to have to read our report.
