Aug. 25—The shortage of affordable housing has reached crisis status both locally and nationally.

"Everywhere you look America's housing crisis is getting worse," an Insider headline stated this month.

"No State Has an Adequate Supply of Affordable Rental Housing for the Lowest Income Renters," a National Low Income Housing Coalition headline stated.

According to the coalition:

* 7 million more housing units are needed right now for the nation's extremely low income families, which number 11 million.

* There is no state or county in the U.S. where a renter working full-time at minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment.

* 75 percent of extremely low income families use more than half of their income to pay rent.

* Assistance programs are so underfunded that only 25 percent of extremely low income families get the help they qualify for.

* Half a million Americans are homeless on any given night.

The situation likely will get worse for the nation's most economically vulnerable when the federal COVID-19 moratorium on evictions eventually ends.

There are two sides to the moratorium. Landlords can't go forever without income. They need to pay the mortgage on every rental house they operate.

There is no single solution that can solve the housing shortage. It's going to be a long haul that will require the combined will of private enterprise, government and individuals. Zoning regulations may need to change to allow smaller dwelling units closer together (The city planning commission set a Sept. 7 public hearing for comment about a proposal that would loosen density limits in some parts of Traverse City). The construction industry as a whole may need to find ways to build more economical apartments and houses. Local governments may need to get down and dirty to encourage housing projects that are truly affordable.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition is concerned primarily with extremely low income families. But the housing problem has been biting the middle class, too. It's not a new problem, but it does seem to have reached a critical state this year.

Social media posts this summer suggest that a number of workers in the region have resorted to living in campers or tents because they can't afford an apartment or can't find enough roommates to share rent.

I recall reading four decades ago about workers in Aspen, Colorado, who had been reduced to sleeping in abandoned mining tunnels. One hundred-year-old tunnel apparently was home to dozens of people who hiked a trail down the mountain each morning to go to work as ski lift operators, waitstaff, clerks and housekeepers.

Las Vegas was in the news a few years ago when it came to light that hundreds of people were living in concrete tunnels of the city's underground storm drainage system.

By comparison, my struggle to find affordable housing early in my working life was cushy.

After college, I took a job 2,000 miles from home in northern Nevada. On arrival, I discovered the "furnished" old house I had rented sight-unseen was furnished only with a mattress on the floor and a rusty folding chair. I'd mailed the landlord the first two weeks rent, and my cash reserves were depleted. So I made due for two weeks while looking for something better. I was in a hurry because winter was approaching and the house had no heat — the landlord suggested I buy a kerosene heater.

My employer helped me find a subsidized apartment. It was clean and heat was included in the rent, but it was unfurnished. I had enough cash to buy a secondhand mattress to put on the bedroom floor. I already had an aluminum lawn chair I had found alongside the freeway in Nebraska. I knocked together a small table from scrap wood my employer was throwing out. It became a cozy abode despite my lack of an interior decorating fund.

Eventually I made some friends, one of whom lived in a mobile home with a vacant furnished bedroom. It was cheaper than the subsidized apartment. I traded the mattress for a portable radio, threw away the lawn chair and put the table back on the scrap heap.

A few years later, I found myself with much of the summer off and just enough money to finance a two-week road trip.

Then living in Milwaukee, I lit out for points west to visit old friends scattered across the map, couch surfing when appropriate, sleeping in my car the rest of the time.

I stopped back in Nevada just to say hello and got roped into working two weeks, during which I stayed — for free — in a friend's recently vacated mobile home, scheduled to be towed away from alongside his new stick-built house. Then I got back on the road with enough cash to fund an additional four weeks of travel — as long as I spent nothing on lodging.

I have fond memories of a house I rented for a year in Colorado, a free-standing garage that had been converted into an efficiency apartment, complete with Murphy bed that filled the living room when folded down. The house was small, but it kept me warm and dry — and it actually was furnished.

The housing situation in Traverse City today is worse than it was in the communities of my youth. Many workers just starting out, on the salaries they draw, have a terrible time finding a warm, dry place to call home. Single folks may be able to find roommates to share the burden. Young families, though, increasingly are finding themselves forced to search far away for a place they can afford.