‘Affordability … is not there’: Officials worry about rent, housing prices as remote workers, retirees skew income data

As the area median income rises, so do prices of the county’s deed-restricted workforce housing. A two-bedroom rental priced at 100% area median income, for example, now costs nearly $3,300 a month, up from $2,842 last year. Housing officials say that increase doesn’t reflect comparable income growth among lower- and middle-income workers who rely on the county’s workforce housing. The problem becomes more pronounced when workforce housing costs begin approaching the prices of housing in the broader real estate market. “If we built 15 stories up on all of our affordable workforce housing units, then we probably wouldn’t have a workforce housing crisis,” Beckerman said.