The more low-income housing nonprofits have to pay for insurance, the less they have leftover to build new units to ease the housing shortage.
Climate change is roiling the housing insurance market. Homeowners’ premiums are skyrocketing, and major insurers are pulling out of markets — California and Louisiana, for example.
The trend is hitting particularly hard in a vulnerable segment of the housing market: subsidized, nonprofit housing for low-income people.
The New Orleans-based Gulf Coast Housing Partnership rents out 2,500 homes to low-income families throughout hurricane country, from Texas to Alabama. CEO Kathy Laborde said just a few years ago, she was paying insurance premiums of about $300 to $500 dollars per unit.
“We’re now looking at $1,800 to $2,400 a door,” she said.
Because the housing is government-subsidized, Laborde can’t raise rents to offset those price hikes. Her poorest tenants couldn’t afford it anyway.
So the nonprofit is dipping into other parts of the budget to make up the difference, which she hopes is a temporary strategy.
“We’re in our strategic planning process, y’know, just coincidentally, and that’s one of the questions we’re asking ourselves. Can we continue to operate in this region? That’s a terrible question to ask,” she said.
It’s not just a Gulf Coast issue. A recent national survey of affordable housing providers found nearly a third saw premiums spike at least 25% year over year.
That’s a problem for creating new housing too.
“The higher the insurance cost on a new development, the more subsidy needs to go into that deal, and that means there’s less subsidy for more units and we end up with less affordable housing as a result,” said David Dworkin, CEO of the National Housing Conference.
Affordable housing advocates are calling on Congress and state lawmakers to ease insurance costs.
Holly Benson, CEO of Los Angeles-based Abode Communities said she’s exploring some group self-insurance options, which still aren’t cheap.
But she needs to do something. This year her premiums shot up 300%.
“If we continue to go down this path, we are not going to be able to hold on to some of these projects,” she said. Which could mean some low-income tenants would have to find other affordable places to live somewhere in LA.
