Published September 26, 2024
Running errands Monday, I passed an apartment complex I looked at a decade ago as a possible place to live. Driving down that street reminded me that I may still live in the same city, but I don’t live in the same world anymore.
I remember checking out how close I would be to this, to that. There was a post office nearby. I was glad to see that. The property was tucked inside a lot of trees. I liked that. Eventually, I chose to live elsewhere. Cost was a factor, but my main concerns were location, safety and whether I could see myself being happy there. At one point I asked, “Do I want to live near Dubois Park?”
You probably don’t need reminding how different 2024 is compared to 2014. Just thinking about how I’d explain it to someone unaware exhausts me. Let’s skip the overall.
Specifically, the cost of housing has soared. “Affordable housing” is used to describe rental units I can’t afford to move into right now. And I have a job that pays a good wage. Adjusted for buying power, it’s only slightly more than I was earning early in my career, but it’s a lot more than many people earn.
Ten years ago, I shopped around for a place to live because my rent was about to increase dramatically. When I moved in there, I paid $734 a month for a fairly modern one-bedroom apartment with assigned, covered parking in a gated community. A year later, the cost was going to be substantially higher. Today, that property lists a similar unit as “starting at $1.391.”
Within three years of leaving that complex, I was paying more than my original rent for a small studio apartment in a less desirable place, a property with no assigned parking, much less covered parking (unless you paid extra for a garage). Those rents have crept past $1,000. For not much room.
When I think about my biggest worries at the time and compare them to now, there’s no comparison. The world felt safer, more affordable, more manageable.
It felt more possible. It held more possibility.
What are we setting up our young people for? What hope are we giving them?
All of this hit me in the face Monday just by driving in that neighborhood and realizing — feeling — how different things are now.
When I returned home from my errands, I saw small tents next to I-5, a stone’s throw from my apartment building, where people without a place to live had set up. What hope are we giving them?
Few things feel sustainable anymore. What do we do about that? All I know is that thinking about others is a start. I don’t know if we have enough people who care.