The Affordability Gap -

What the Heck Is It?

When people talk about “affordable housing,” they usually mean subsidized housing. That works for the lowest-income households, and certainly I don’t want to dismiss its importance. But what about everyone else — the people who earn too much to qualify for help, but not enough to actually buy a home?

 

That’s the affordability gap.

 

I know it well. I don’t qualify for subsidies. I also don’t qualify for a mortgage. I make too much for one, not enough for the other. That’s the trap. And I’m not the only one stuck in it. Families earning middle-class incomes, single-income households stretched too thin, and people with disabilities who are excluded by design — we’re all in the same place: locked out of ownership by a system that doesn’t fit our lives.

 

The cost of that gap is huge. It forces people to rent for life, throwing money at landlords instead of building equity. It keeps parents from putting down roots for their kids. It makes people feel like stability and dignity are luxuries instead of rights. And it tells millions of us that the dream of homeownership just wasn’t meant for us.

 

But the truth is, the gap isn’t a personal failure. It’s a policy failure. It’s the product of zoning laws written for another era, mortgage systems built for two incomes, and housing markets that equate “bigger” with “better.”

 

That’s the affordability gap: too much for help, not enough for homeownership. It’s a gap that traps millions. In Part Two, I talk about why it matters — and how Little Haven is fighting to close it.