CEDC: Economy healthier, but COVID ravaged housing

“The local economy has improved significantly since the height of the pandemic,” Columbia County Board of Supervisors Chairman Matt Murell said. “And we are fortunate that Columbia County continues to make progress as we move beyond this unprecedented negative economic impact. Our efforts in the coming months will focus on continuing to provide targeted relief to those businesses and organizations that still need assistance, along with a new emphasis with building and strengthening businesses for future growth and success.”

The meeting’s keynote speaker, Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress President and CEO Adam Bosch, addressed the economic changes caused by the pandemic. He said housing has become more expensive, many people quit their jobs and changed their expectations about how they worked and where they worked, child care became increasingly more difficult to find and a number of people who lived in the region part-time previously have moved to the area.

Young families today are facing a “three-way tug-of-war” across our region, Bosch said. Young families are facing increasing costs of housing, college and child care.

Young families today face different bills and expenses that older generations did not, which has impacted families ability to grow, Bosch said.

“We talk about housing being expensive, we talk about population being on the decline ... well, this is one of the root causes for that,” Bosch said. “When you have to make a decision between are you going to buy a house or are you going to have a second child, it’s no wonder that the average number of children has gone from 2.8 to 2.3 over the past decade. These are real decisions that young families are being forced to make.”

Housing costs have risen dramatically in recent years, Bosch said. Families that have to spend more of their income on housing can’t afford to do the things they want to be able to do. The higher housing costs push families who might have otherwise purchased a home into rental properties, which can drive up the cost of rents.

“People who are at the bottom of the rental market are really struggling to afford their rent as the rents go up,” Bosch said. “And we end up with an affordability problem at the rental side as well, because the average renter in Columbia County makes almost $12 an hour, but needs almost $20 an hour to meet that affordability threshold of only spending 30% of their income.”

Columbia County has more than 4,000 households spending more than 30% of their income on housing and 3,475 households in the county spending more than half of their income on housing.

“When you have to spend more than 50% of your income just on housing, you don’t have a lot of money left over to do the things you want to do,” Bosch said. “You only have the money to do the things you absolutely need to do. And that is just a tough place for families to be.”

This has a big impact on the economy, Bosch said. It is not enough to talk about the issues facing the economy, but to discuss potential solutions to some of the problems, such as increasing new rental housing developments, the stock of housing which is available for sale as well as for rent.

Corporation President and CEO F. Michael Tucker said the corporation’s current strategic plan is based on four pillars: entrepreneurship and innovation, infrastructure, quality of life and sustainability and workforce and education.