A shared vision for affordable housing in the Quad Cities

By Kelly Thompson / Vice President of Grantmaking and Community Initiatives

Earlier this fall, I had the privilege of serving as emcee for the Affordable Housing Solutions Summit hosted by the Quad Cities Housing Council, a coalition of diverse community leaders working together to address the affordable housing crisis in our region. At the Quad Cities Community Foundation, we see participating in sustained efforts like this—efforts to address issues that no one person or organization can tackle on their own—as a crucial part of our work. This morning, I’d like to share some of what we’ve learned from being part of this group and its work on an issue so many in our community care about.  

First, there is an affordable housing crisis in the Quad Cities. While the pandemic has only made it worse, this crisis grows out of several long-term trends: rents rising faster than household incomes, affordable apartments falling into disrepair and closing, and units that were once affordable becoming increasingly expensive. The result? A gap of 6,645 units that are safe, decent, and affordable for the more than 15,000 households in the Quad Cities with extremely low incomes.

Numbers like that can be hard to take in. But bring it down to the level of an individual family who is being asked to make impossible choices about how to stretch its budget, and the traumatic toll of the crisis becomes clearer. Consider what it means for that family’s well-being to face housing instability that bumps them from home to home. They frequently change school districts. They lose their belongings and connections when they have to move unexpectedly. They pay for storage units while staying with extended family or friends. They risk—or experience—homelessness.  

Let’s turn the question around: what would it mean for that same family to be stably housed? How would that benefit their kids’ ability to perform in school? What would that mean for the adults’ ability to be employed at a job they enjoy and can reliably get to? Now, zoom back out: what would it mean to the Quad Cities for 6,645 more households in our community to have that stability?

Access to safe, decent, and affordable housing is the foundation of every other opportunity a person can pursue and every other thing they can achieve. In the big picture, this means that an affordable housing crisis—with the stresses it puts on individuals and families and the strains it puts on our systems of law enforcement, our schools, and our hospitals—limits what we can accomplish as a community. As long as a significant number of people in the Quad Cities lack stable housing, we won’t be able to make the advances we’d like to see in everything from education to arts and culture to healthcare.

Investing the time to understand the challenges our community faces is part of the work of the Community Foundation. But we have also learned through our longtime participation in the Quad Cities Housing Council about the opportunities for progress that are possible. Knowing that the status quo is not enough to solve the affordable housing crisis in our region, the group spent a year determining the scope of the issue and identifying the steps we as a community can take to make the biggest difference. They developed and are now working to fulfill the Quad Cities Affordable Housing Vision. The strategies in the Vision are wide-ranging, from producing more affordable units and preserving the existing stock to protecting tenants’ rights and providing services that help people stay in their homes, among others. The members of this coalition are working toward this together—and inviting others to join them.

So today, I invite you to take some time to learn more about the affordable housing crisis we face and the solutions that are possible with a focused collaborative effort. The Quad Cities Housing Council is a great place to start. They’ve just kicked off a series of affordable housing virtual lunch-and-learns that explore the challenges and solutions in more detail. Follow the group on Facebook for updates and invitations to future events.  

Engaging to learn more about the issues our region faces isn’t just part of the work of the Community Foundation—it’s part of the work of community. Together, we can do what it takes to build a Quad Cities where all our neighbors can thrive.