ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Adriana Jackson, a single mother, is struggling to keep a roof over her son’s head.
Jackson’s son, who is entering seventh grade at East High School, has faced challenges due to their housing situation.
“He’s going into the 7th grade at East High School next year and one of the things that he has expressed to me in the 6th grade was people picking at him, bro.. where you stay at, where you stay at,” Jackson said.
Bringing in a little less than $2,000 a month, Jackson faces a harsh reality when it comes to finding an affordable place to live.
“If the two-bedroom apartment is $1,000, they’re looking for me to be bringing in $3,000 to be able to afford this apartment,” Jackson said. “How can families bring in 3 times as much income?”
Even buildings that claim to be low-income or affordable are rejecting her and she’s been on the waiting list for public housing for years.
“It’s a daily mental turmoil trying to figure out where am I going to go after November,” Jackson said.
Rochester Mayor Malik Evans says he hears stories like Jackson’s every day.
“There’s data that is clear, that if you have housing instability, you’re more likely to not have a stable job, you’re more likely to struggle academically, you’re more likely to have higher levels of stress,” Evans said. “It is absolutely a fact that outcomes in school, incidents of violence, all of that can track right back to someone living in a stable home.”
Evans stated that aside from crime, housing has become his top priority.
“It’s going to be harder to handle housing with all the changes in the economy that’s coming unfortunately,” Evans said. “But we wanted to make sure while the economy was still kind of stable and we had the resources that we really went full steam ahead on housing.”
Over the past five years, Rochester has added about 5,000 housing units, but the city still needs between 5,000 and 10,000 more affordable options.
“We don’t build affordable housing, we don’t build any housing, even our by the block program, any of that stuff it’s built with partners,” Evans said. “So you have to work with others to do that and I think it’s a dance that you have to have to strike the right balance.”
That balance hasn’t tilted in Jackson’s favor just yet.
“I’ve realized that some of those buildings are only available, one or two people or maybe 3 or 4 people who have low income, they’re not all low-income apartment buildings,” Jackson said.
The cycle of housing insecurity continues for Jackson and many others.
“If myself and other families are not having stable housing, then how can we move up that pyramid and be success people for our families and our communities,” Jackson said.
In addition to trying to lure in developers to build multi-family dwellings, the city is also partnering with modular home companies to fill vacant lots. The hope is that pre-fabricated homes can be put up quicker and cheaper and sold to first-time home buyers at a reasonable price.
Single Rochester mother deals with housing insecurity amid affordable housing shortage WHEC.com.
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