Through the roof: Tupelo officials, residents tackle citywide lack of affordable housing
Sep. 10—TUPELO — Matthew Knight and his wife, Hannah, recently decided they were ready to start a family. Before moving forward, however, the couple felt they needed stable housing.
That was nearly two years ago. The couple, who live in a duplex on Allen Street, say they're still searching for a permanent place to live.
"The common problem we have is whatever is available is snatched up really quickly," Knight said. "It seems like, in our local area, there are a lot of people using real estate as an investment. We've seen houses getting bought, renovated and sold for double the original price."
Knight, 29, and his wife are just one of countless examples of people in Tupelo and Lee County struggling to secure housing within their price range. Local officials, real estate agents and prospective buyers agree that the issue with housing in Tupelo, along with the general inflation of prices for housing across the nation, boils down to supply and demand and profit margins.
Simply put, there are not enough rental opportunities or starter homes to keep up with the city's growing population.
"It is all supply and demand," Tupelo Mayor Todd Jordan said of the issue. "There has always been a gap between lower priced homes and the upper, midrange homes."
Jordan, a former real estate agent, said there just isn't enough of a profit margin in a 2,200-square-foot home compared to a 2,500- to 3,000-square-foot home.
The mayor said the city has been tackling the issue through several programs, including donating homes and lots to Habitat for Humanity and working with the Neighborhood Development Corporation to revitalize areas.
"The city is doing what it can to help out contractors build reasonably priced homes," he said.
Affordable housing is a 'moving target'
"Affordable housing" has a different meaning for each individual, Tupelo City Planner Jenny Savely said, but the general rule of thumb for municipal and federal purposes is that 30% of a person's income is what should be affordable to them.
Many people, she said, live in housing that is beyond their means.
"Unfortunately, many people are spending 45% to 50% of their income (on housing)," she said.
That's a problem city officials can't solve. At least, not on their own.
"We can't control the economy, and we can't control the political appetite for whatever housing is at the time," she said.
According to 2022 Census data, Tupelo has a median income of $54,691 annually. That would make the average housing cost target about $1,300 a month.
The issue with this metric, Savely said, is that it includes not only the lowest earners but also the highest earners, which skews the numbers. A person working 40 hours a week at minimum wage makes a gross income of about 1,200 a month before taxes.
American Community Surveying data reports that there are 5,741 occupied rental units in the city. Of those units, most have a monthly rent between $500 to $900, with 3,716 units compared. The median rent is $795. This does not take into account unit square footage.
"Anything we can do to balance out what we require without putting the cost burden back on the renter is really where we are looking," Savely said. "(Affordable housing) is a complicated issue for 8,000 reasons. Food, water and shelter: These are the basic tenets for what it is to exist, so we want to manage our access to those things as much from the framework of them being public goods as possible."
The average mortgage, based on ACS findings, is $1,160, with the bulk of homes coming in between either $500 to $999, or $1,000 to $1,500.
Savely said the city previously estimated it would need 17,000 homes and rental units by 2010 to meet Tupelo's population demands.
ACS data reports there are currently about 15,000 citywide.
Revitalization vs. removal
One method city officials are using to create a broader range of housing options for residents is to revitalize what's already available, but isn't being used.
Savely said the city budgeted $1.3 million specifically for blight removal and revitalization efforts this year, and city officials are looking at options that could save blighted properties with no need for demolition.
She also noted the city works with nonprofits to provide homeowners who cannot afford renovations with people who can assist in repairs to keep the property off of the demolition list.
Belden Baptist Church, Calvary Baptist Church, Keep Tupelo Beautiful and Habitat for Humanity have reached out to provide handy people to help make repairs through a program run by the city's outreach coordinator, Marcus Gary.
"The city is not handing out violations," Savely said. "We are trying to address the need, because we know that many of our code violations are coming from our most disadvantaged residents, people who are working multiple jobs that don't have time or funds."
Savely said the program has seen an overwhelming response from people who want to help resolve issues with dilapidated housing.
It's a good start, she said.
"I know it seems like we are inching away at it," Savely said. "But a little goes a long way."
When asked how to combat the supply and demand issue, Tupelo's mayor said annexation might not be off the table in the next five years.
"We are running out of room to build houses," Jordan said. "At some point, we may have to look into annexing some more property, but where do we go? We can't go south because of Verona. We butt up to Saltillo going north. East, you have a lot of open property, and west, you are limited toward Pontotoc. In the next few years, we are going to have to seriously look at another annexation to open up property for people who want to live in the city."
Market weighted toward high-income earners
Late last month, Andy Estes, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker in Tupelo, said there were fewer than 200 houses on the market in the city.
Of those homes, only 12 had price tags of below $100,000. Thirty-two cost around $150,000, and 53 were about $200,000.
Estes said the housing market proportions were lopsided.
"It should have a good mix, but be weighted toward the affordable market," he said. "It is totally weighted the opposite now than what it should be. We need more affordable housing built in the city."
Estes said the average cost of a starter home went from under $100,000 to around $125,000 to $150,000 over the last decade or so. The rapid increase in housing costs have caused more than a few of his clients to get priced out of the market, he said.
Knight, who uses Estes as an agent, said the issue with this rise is that the average earnings for an individual haven't risen to meet the increased cost. The federal government last raised the minimum wage from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 in 2009. In that same amount of time, between 1996 and 2009, the minimum wage rose four times.
Estes also noted that over the past two years, the average home went from two offers on average, to at least four or five. Competition, he said, has grown more fierce, and that drives prices up and up.
"We've had a lot of people looking that have been priced out of housing," Estes said.
People like Knight, for example. Over the last six months, he and his wife have been unable to make an offer on a property in the area.
"We haven't been able to put an offer in on anything because, traditionally, you would have some time to think about it," said Knight, who works as a manager at local bicycle shop Trails and Treads. "Whatever is available is snatched up really quickly."
Not enough rental property, advocates and officials note
Tupelo Housing Authority Director Tabitha Smith said she believes more needs to be done as a community to combat increasing housing costs.
Her suggestion: Create more housing opportunities to lower the cost of rent overall.
"We have a constant wait list," she said. "To be able to have a place you can call home — that you can afford to pay rent — that gives a family that sense of security. Just having a home is one of the most important things for everybody."
The lack of affordable housing in the city also drives insecurities, Mississippi Balance of State Continuum of Care Director Hannah Maharrey said. She noted that the city's continued focus on economic development was good but could also exacerbate the issue.
"I love the fact that we are very pro-employment, pro-workforce development," she said. "I think that will keep our community competitive. It will also increase income. But if you don't have anywhere to live, they are not coming here."
Not that long ago, Maharrey was in a situation similar to Knight's. When she returned to her hometown of Tupelo in 2017, she immediately began looking for a home.
She quickly discovered that permanent housing was too expensive.
"As a single person, I cannot afford a house here," she said. "Affordable housing does get a bad rap, but it's about affordability for each bracket of the socioeconomic ladder."
During a public hearing on potential Mississippi Home Corporation grants and their application for American Rescue Plan Act funds in late August, Lee Caldwell, who serves on the board of the local Salvation Army, noted the need for more rental units.
"We don't have a place for them," he said. "It is a sad situation. There is nowhere today to put them."
Hope for a home
Jordan said he brings his perspective as a former real estate agent to the way he runs his administration. From the moment he took his oath of office, one of his focuses has been blight removal and neighborhood revitalization. This includes the purchase of property in areas around the city to sell later.
"The city of Tupelo owns some property off of Lawndale that we could develop," the mayor said. "We have been a little bit reluctant on doing that, just because of construction prices. We've some of that on West Jackson. Even with selling the lots at a reduced rate, the prices are still up. We have to be careful, but that is an option."
Another issue many cities, including Tupelo, run into when revitalizing neighborhoods is the concept of gentrification, or the process of changing a neighborhood's characteristics to bring in more affluent individuals while pricing out already established individuals in the area.
Savely said it was a "real and present" issue affecting not just Tupelo, but the entire nation.
She called balancing the need to revitalize aging neighborhoods without pricing out the people who live there a "fine line."
"It is a hard mindset to think not all property value increases may be positive," she said. "We can't ask developers who own a parcel to engage with how that will impact the community as a whole any more than we can ask a business that might be defined as not having an overall positive community impact from locating somewhere."
She said the ball was in elected officials' court to encourage healthy residential growth. As an apolitical advisor, Savely said she can suggest a "forward-thinking strategic growth plan," but any momentum would depend on the city council's appetite for such policy.
In the meantime, Knight said he and his wife will continue to look for a home. They plan to widen their search outside of Tupelo and Lee County. They recently found a property in Pontotoc owned by a friend of a friend. Knight said he hopes to tour it and decide soon.
After years of searching, the couple are praying they'll finally have a home.
"We are hoping this one works out," Knight said.
