Arlington Housing Prices- Out of Reach

by Steve Revilak

The term “AMI” or “Area Median Income” comes up in almost any discussion about affordable housing, because it’s used to set rents and the household incomes for people who are eligible to live in affordable dwellings.  AMI is a fairly technocratic concept and my goal is to make the concept (and the numbers) easier to understand.

AMIs are set each year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; broadly speaking, an AMI is the median income of a region.  Arlington is part of the “Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH HUD Metro FMR Area” which consists of more than 100 cities and towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Median incomes represent the “middle” family income of an area—half of households make more, and half make less.

In the process of turning median incomes into income limits, HUD also considers household size: larger households are assigned larger AMI limits than smaller ones, in order to reflect the higher cost of living for more family members.

How do these limits translate into affordable housing regulations?  Arlington’s affordable housing requirements (aka “inclusionary zoning”) require that rents for affordable units be priced for the 60% area median income, but the dwellings are available to households making up to 70%.  Let’s show an example with some numbers.

Household size	60% Income Limit	70% Income Limit	60% Rent
1	$68,520	$79,940	$1,717/month
2	$78,360	$91,420	$1,959/month
3	$88,140	$102,830	$2,203/month

HUD considers an apartment suitable for a household if it has one bedroom less than the number of household members, so a two-bedroom apartment would be suitable for a household of three, a one-bedroom would be suitable for a household of two, and a studio would be suitable for a household of one.  The monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment would be calculated as follows: $88,140 ÷ 12 × 30% = $2,203.  The 30% comes from HUD’s rule that affordable housing tenants should not be cost-burdened, meaning that they pay no more than 30% of their income in rent.$88k or $102k/year can seem like a lot of money (and once upon a time it was). To get a better sense of what these income levels mean, I looked into what kinds of jobs pay these wages. To that end, I found wage information from the Arlington Public Schools report to Town Meeting, the Arlington town budget, and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Here are a few scenarios:

Scenario 1: single adult

Scenario 1 represents a single adult living alone, and earning between $68,520 and $79,940.  Jobs in this pay range include:

• Elementary classroom teacher ($62,000 – $75,000)
• Town planner ($75,000 – 79,000)
• Animal Control Officer ($72,000)
• Firefighter ($73,640)
• Librarian ($70,395)
• Lab Technician ($70,710)
• Social Worker ($71,470)
• Subway operator ($72,270)
• Licensed Practical Nurse ($75,690)
• Paralegal ($77,500)
• Chef ($78,040)
• Carpenter ($78,000)

Scenario 2: single parent with household of two

Scenario 2 represents a single parent earning between $78,360 and $91,420/year.  Jobs in this pay range include:

• Office Manager – Assessor’s office ($80,399)
• Assistant Town Clerk ($77,375)
• Town Engineer ($74,000 – $80,000)
• Police Department Patrol Officer ($87,000)
• Town Budget Director ($88,488)
• Telecommunications equipment installer ($80,350)
• Plasterer and Stucco Mason ($82,250)
• Electrician ($82,380)
• Cement Mason ($86,250)
• Plumber and pipe fitter ($90,580)

Scenario 3: household of two, both adults

Scenario 3 has two adults, each earning $39,180 – $45,710 per year.  Jobs in this salary range include several that we’ve come to know as “essential workers” during the pandemic.

• Special education teaching assistant ($34,290)
• Arlington Public Schools Paraprofessional ($36,290 – 42,440)
• Substitute Teacher ($34,921)
• Inspectional Services Record Keeper ($44,481)
• Food preparation worker ($39,590)
• Bartender ($39,730)
• Childcare worker ($40,470)
• Ambulance Driver ($40,890)
• Waiter ($41,440)
• Pharmacy aide ($41,460)
• Bank teller ($42,270)
• Tailor and dressmaker ($43,790)
• Restaurant cook ($44,140)

You may have noticed gaps in these lists — for example, there are no jobs listed in the $50,000 – $60,000 range because it’s in between the income limits for one- and two-income households.  It’s also worth noting that a fair number of town employees’ salaries would qualify them for affordable housing (the town is Arlington’s largest employer).

So who qualifies to live in affordable housing?  People with a lot of ordinary, working-class jobs, including many town employees.