Kansas City’s dearth of affordable housing has a devastating on effect our low-income fellow residents. The city’s own data shows that it has a disproportionate impact on Black and brown people, the elderly, those who are disabled and those with mental health challenges. The pandemic has transformed this critical and chronic problem into an immediate crisis for those who have rent or mortgage payments due, and has also helped us understand how many people are just one month’s income away from having no home. Accessible housing for all is racial justice, and it is economic justice.

Kansas City’s 2018 Housing Policy Task Force established a goal of building or preserving 5,000 low- to moderately-priced homes by 2023 and set forth the following vision:

“A bold and aggressive housing policy that reflects the spirit of Kansas City, with programs and initiatives which set us apart from other cities, has the broad support of stakeholders who actively assist in its implementation, and whose residents are proud of the accomplishments and who we are as a city.”

We know that we cannot have a housing policy that we are proud of unless we take aggressive steps to overcome the systemic racism built into local, state and federal policies, including mandated segregation. Nor can we be proud of a system that leaves so many hardworking and disadvantaged people literally out in the cold.

We also know that many essential workers in our community earn the median hourly wage of $11.40, including food service, health care, grocery and retail personnel. Yet $18.81 is the minimum wage and annual salary needed to meet the minimum market-rate rent requirements in KansasCity.

Further, many of our fellow citizens at or below Kansas City’s median family income of $43,000 (for a family of four) are paying significantly more than the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s recommended amount of 30% of their income on housing costs. These Kansas Citians are faced with a shortage of more than 8,000 units. In addition, most residents with very low income ($26,000 for a family of four), spend 50% of their income on housing. Faced with a shortage of 16,000 units at this level, these families must stretch what is left of their budget to cover transportation, food and basic necessities — so we can see why housing insecurity is literally making our low-income neighbors sick.

Mayor Quinton Lucas and the City Council, through their recent adoption of an ordinance providing an affordable housing set-aside, took an important first step toward building a more just and equitable housing system for our city. The Urban Neighborhood Initiative’s coalition, Promoting Equitable Neighborhoods or PEN, is proud to have played a pivotal role in the passage of this ordinance.

Set-aside policies work. There are several peer cities — Minneapolis, Nashville, Denver — where these policies have produced thousands of housing units over the last 20 years. Maryland’s housing set-aside has produced more 10,000 units since 1974, utilizing a similar policy framework.

A comprehensive study by the nonprofit Lincoln Institute of Land Policy identified 889 jurisdictions using some kind of inclusionary housing policy, that requires or offers some kind of incentives for the creation of affordable housing.

Beginning April 8, developers of projects with 12 or more units receiving incentives in Kansas City must set aside 20% of the units in their buildings — half of those affordable for families earning 70% of the median family income (equivalent to $60,200 for a family of four) and the other half to those earning 30% of it (equivalent to $26,200 for a family of four). Kansas City’s ordinance will establish a clear and predictable standard for community benefits when a project utilizes public subsidies and incentives. The ordinance does not seek to put the burden of solving the affordability crisis on the backs of developers, but rather to align the city’s policies and practices with its stated goals.

We applaud the City Council for taking this initial step toward making housing accessible to all. At the same time, we know that our city needs a comprehensive inclusionary housing policy and a housing trust fund to provide resources in support of that policy.

The PEN coalition, comprised of community and neighborhood leaders, nonprofits, anchor intuitions, public agencies, businesses and residents, recognizes the importance of stable housing to the overall mental and physical health of residents and the community as a whole.

The neighborhood environment in which one lives has a major impact on life outcomes overall. It has been well documented that housing-insecure Americans are twice as likely to have poor or fair health status compared to those with housing insecurity. According to a study in the medical journal Pediatrics, residential instability is associated with health problems among youth, including increased risks of teen pregnancy, early drug use and depression.

We support housing accessible to all levels of income in mixed income communities because those communities make the city and its people healthier. The social determinants of health — factors such as access to healthy food options, living wage jobs and quality education, along with low levels of violence — make for a healthy environment. These are available to most low-income individuals only in mixed income communities. Researchers have documented that moving from high-poverty to low-poverty areas can improve a number of health-related indicators and outcomes.

With all that is at stake, simply calling for racial justice and economic justice, is not enough. We must work to create it through policies and programs. While we celebrate the milestone of the affordable housing set-aside ordinance and offer sincere thanks to the mayor and City Council, we still have work to do. Our city must establish and capitalize a housing trust fund and implement a comprehensive inclusionary housing policy.

Housing justice is indeed racial justice. It is also economic justice.

Dianne Cleaver is president and CEO of Urban Neighborhood Initiative, a 501(c)3 nonprofit whose mission is to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and historical racial inequities caused by decades of neglect and systemic racism.