Housing can help solve economic, health, and educational challenges in Oakland County

This story is part of a series that highlights the challenges and solutions around housing in Southeast Michigan and is made possible through underwriting support from the Oakland County (Region L) Regional Housing Partnership. 

Over 32 years of addiction to opiates and heroin, Pontiac resident Ronnie Stienke had experienced numerous periods of homelessness, living in shelters, abandoned homes, and his car. He'd also spent time in prison for armed robbery, larceny of firearms, and possession of a controlled substance.

But Stienke has been sober since June 1, 2023, and he says finding stable housing has been crucial to beginning to turn his life around. In 2021, he'd been living in a homeless shelter for 11 months when shelter staff connected him to the Troy-based nonprofit Community Housing Network (CHN). CHN helped Stienke find his current apartment in Pontiac and initially covered his rent costs.

"It's a big part of helping me with my recovery," he says. "I mean, think about it. It'd be 100 times harder to stay clean and sober if I was out on the streets, because the drugs are everywhere out there."

Stienke says housing has also allowed him to reconnect with his children and grandchildren, who will be coming to his place for Thanksgiving this year. And he's found time and motivation to begin volunteering at Oakland County's Harm Reduction Clinic, where he will soon become a paid employee. Stienke says "none of that would be possible without housing."
Steve KossRonnie Stienke in his apartment.
"When I was active in my addiction, I hated myself. I hated looking at myself in the mirror. I hated waking up in the morning. I had a conscience, and I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn't get away from it," he says. "I tried to remember the organizations and the people that stepped forward and helped me, and I just want to try to give back."

Stienke's story is just one example of the many positive ripple effects of an adequate supply of affordable housing, both for the individuals being housed and the communities surrounding them. Habitat for Humanity has noted positive housing outcomes including economic opportunity, health improvements, and even educational advancement. Oakland County is no exception to these effects.
Ryan HertzRyan Hertz.
"Housing is often thought of [as] just a series of needs and a box to check that costs a certain amount of money in a household budget," says Ryan Hertz, president and CEO of Lighthouse, a Pontiac-based nonprofit housing developer and housing service provider. "But it's also the environment that influences the day-to-day life of the household and the family, the opportunities that the family faces, and how much it's going to cost for them to get from that location to ... work and school."

Jacob Wilson, director of programs at the Pontiac Community Foundation, agrees.

"Housing really serves as the anchor for any society," he says. "... It's the greatest barometer for what your quality of life is going to be in any given community."

Housing and the economy

Housing supply affects many other aspects of society, including the strength or weakness of local economies. A Boston University survey of 118 American mayors found that 81% of them ranked housing costs as one of the top two economic challenges for their cities. And a 2015 Brookings Institute study found a declining number of jobs within the typical commute distance (10.4 miles for the Detroit area) in America's metro areas – meaning that housing is increasingly located farther from job centers. This presents a particular challenge for people who are already burdened by the cost of housing, as they may lack money, time, or a vehicle to get to work.
Jennifer Erb-DownwardJennifer Erb-Downward.
"Parents are really having to choose between 'Do I get my kid to school?' or 'Do I make it to my job on time?'" says Jennifer Erb-Downward, director of housing stability programs and policy initiatives at Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan. "This instability just removes any social support networks that you have."

Hertz says that creates challenges for local business owners, particularly those who rely on a low- to mid-income workforce. They may experience high turnover rates and difficulty maintaining consistent, reliable staff, making it more expensive for them to do business.

"If it becomes challenging for businesses to fill positions, it becomes challenging to build a strong economy," he says.
Jacob WilsonJacob Wilson.
Wilson agrees that affordable, quality housing is a boon to business owners, who will find it "much easier to attract talent and retain talent."

"If I'm an auto manufacturer and I'm looking to hire engineers, but I have to tell the engineers, 'Hey, the closest suitable housing development that would fit your needs and wants is 45 minutes away,' that's a much harder pitch than, say, 'Hey, we have this new housing development that would be perfect for you, and it's a 10-minute commute from work,'" he says.

Housing and health

There are also strong links between housing supply and health. 

"Even a person who is housed, but is extremely rent burdened, doesn't necessarily have the resources to address their preventative health needs," Hertz says.

But the health implications of housing go even deeper than that, according to the White House's U.S. Playbook to Address Social Determinants of Health. The playbook notes that "Inadequate housing can increase the risk of exposure to unsanitary conditions, lead poisoning, poor indoor air quality, climate-related hazards such as extreme temperatures and severe weather events, and a variety of other issues which can adversely impact health." It adds that homelessness "is correlated with high rates of injurious health conditions such as HIV infection, alcohol and other substance use disorders, untreated mental illness, and tuberculosis." 

Such was the case for Stienke, who says that mental illness, addiction, and homelessness were "almost like one entity."
Steve KossRonnie Stienke in his apartment.
"It affects everybody around you and it takes everything from you," he says. "Your job, your family, your friends, everything, your dignity – it takes it all."

A policy brief that Erb-Downward co-authored found particularly sobering health implications of homelessness among children. Their research found that homeless youth "were five times more likely to have attempted suicide, four times more likely to currently misuse prescription pain medicine, three times more likely to have been forced to have sex, and 11 times more likely to have been, or gotten someone pregnant than their housed peers." Many of these are considered adverse childhood experiences, which can cause developmental challenges and long-term physical and mental health issues. 

"This housing crisis is having a huge impact on the next generation of children," Erb-Downward says. "... There just is this higher risk for different negative health impacts for kids across the board."

Housing and education

Housing also has profound impacts on children's educational outcomes. While Oakland County has one of Michigan's lowest youth homelessness rates, at about 1%, that still represents about 1,400 children – and many more who are housed but struggle with negative educational outcomes related to inadequate housing. Students who are currently homeless, formerly homeless, and even economically disadvantaged but never homeless experience much higher rates of school suspension or expulsion than their housed and non-economically disadvantaged peers. 

"Children who are experiencing housing instability are struggling more to get to school, so their attendance is really suffering because of the instability," Erb-Downward says. "We see lower proficiency rates in English and math, lower graduation rates, higher dropout rates. And it's important to keep in mind this is not because children are less capable. They are exposed to many different stressors, and this is placing them at risk for worse educational outcomes."

Even if children are housed and getting to school regularly, their families' socioeconomic status may still lead to them being housed in a poorer area with lower-quality schools. 

"Education is something that we need to collectively invest in," Hertz says. "Those opportunities look different and generate different outcomes when people are isolated in low-income communities and educated within schools that are located exclusively in lower-income communities, versus when you have a blend of people from different economic backgrounds being educated together."

While housing instability in the classroom may seem invisible and therefore nonexistent, Erb-Downward stresses that it's not "a faraway issue." She says that statistically, most children will at some point come into contact with a classmate who has experienced it. 

"The bottom line is that there is a lot of good that could be done if children and families had access to stable, affordable housing, and that we would be seeing those benefits in the classroom," she says. "We'd be seeing it in the health outcomes of kids and families [and in] job stability for parents. It just is so hard to keep everything together and keep everything functioning the way it's supposed to if you don't have a stable place to live."

Affordable housing effects in Oak Park
Erik TungateErik Tungate.
The city of Oak Park has experienced many of these positive benefits of affordable housing firsthand. CHN opened Jefferson Oaks, a 60-unit complex for families earning 30-60% of the area median income, in the city in 2018. Lighthouse opened Coolidge Place, a 64-unit affordable housing complex, in the city in 2020. Both developments were built on previously unused city property. Oak Park City Manager Erik Tungate says both developments interested city staff because they were aware of Oakland County's housing affordability problem.

"I think the reality is there really aren't a lot of affordable housing options available to people," he says. "And at the time, we wanted to provide housing options for people who could help us grow our population using property that was otherwise vacant."

Tungate says the city's population has indeed grown since then, "due in large part" to the two affordable developments. But other benefits have come with the population growth.

"For our retail businesses, they like it because it's brought new foot traffic into their storefronts," Tungate says.

He says the developments have also "put more eyes and ears on the street."

"These were properties here in Oak Park that were vacant, with no productive use, that now have people living there, observing what's happening on the street, and that has led to, I think, improved safety," he says.
LighthouseCoolidge Place.
Tungate says affordable housing will continue to be a priority for Oak Park, which is currently pursuing a senior affordable housing development on its municipal campus. He says "a lot of people talk about this stuff, but not a lot of cities like Oak Park actually do it." He feels that's an oversight in a county with high demand for affordable housing.

"There's not a lot of other options out there for people, especially in these inner-ring suburbs like Oak Park," he says. "... So if these communities aren't looking at these kinds of things, then I think they're being pretty short-sighted."

Patrick Dunn is the managing editor of Concentrate and a freelance writer and editor. He lives in Ypsilanti.

Ronnie Stienke photos by Steve Koss. All other photos courtesy of the subjects.