KALAMAZOO, MI — Mackenzie Grace Hatfield would like to buy a home.
But like many Kalamazoo County residents, that dream feels out of reach for her.
Hatfield, 39, is a single mother with a teenager at home. She makes a little under $50,000. Finding a new place on her income alone is “incredibly challenging,” she says.
Hatfield is living at a friend’s house while paying his $1,200 monthly mortgage, while saving all she can. She follows the news on interest rates and the political landscape, strategizing when to buy.
“Prices are really high,” she says. She has a budget of about $150,000.
She might have to rent, for now — although those prices aren’t much better.
Hatfield is looking around Kalamazoo County for affordability, hoping to stay in Kalamazoo Public Schools, without sacrificing too much in areas like safety. She scours Zillow and other websites to find homes for sale before they disappear.
They often go quickly, she says.
It’s a common tale in Kalamazoo County. Incomes have risen 19% since 2019 — but housing prices are up 46%. Finding housing that doesn’t break the bank used to be a problem for low-income folks.
Now, even households with a decent salary are in a pinch.
The numbers tell the story
Whether buying or renting, Kalamazoo residents must pay a larger chunk of their paycheck today on housing than they did five years ago.
The numbers tell the story.
![]()
Devin Anderson-Torrez | MLive.com1115 Woodward Ave in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Oct. 1, 2024. As of Oct. 14, the home was listed for $121,900. Rising home prices in Kalamazoo County have created a shortage of affordable homes for first-time homebuyers and families or individuals making at or below the median income in the area.The median home value in Kalamazoo County has increased from $171,200 in 2019 to $251,200 in 2023 (up 46%), per U.S. Census estimates. Meanwhile, household incomes in Kalamazoo County rose from $56,441 to $67,191 (up 19%) during that timespan.
The federal government says
households should not pay more than 30% of their pre-tax income to housing costs. That includes rent or mortgage payments, utilities, insurance, property taxes and homeowner association fees.
Yet in 2023, 30% of all Kalamazoo County households — and nearly half of renters — exceeded that 30% benchmark, Census data shows. That compares to 25%, four years earlier.
“Wages absolutely have not kept up with housing prices,” says Mary Balkema, Kalamazoo County’s housing director. “It used to be that a government subsidy for housing was for the very poor. Now the government subsidy for housing is for the very middle class.”
The rising cost of housing means more adults are living with their parents or friends. More people are in places they can’t afford, “living one paycheck away from complete financial disaster,” Balkema says.
“A lot of people are doubled up,” Balkema says. “Or they‘re living in their cars. The (Kalamazoo Gospel Mission homeless shelter) used to be old dudes who didn’t have a job and were really down and out. Now they have people who work full time and sleep there.”
Kalamazoo County is not alone — its housing woes are a microcosm of the nationwide housing crisis.
But housing affordability is particularly problematic in the Kalamazoo area. Kalamazoo County’s median home value is 3.74 times higher than the median income — which is the sixth worst in Michigan, out of 83 counties.
In other words, it would take 3.74 years worth of the average resident’s salary to afford the average Kalamazoo County home.
Cost-burdened households in Kalamazoo County
Compare that to Saginaw County — where incomes are lower, but housing prices are more than $100,000 lower, on average. It takes 2.47 years worth of the average Saginaw County resident’s salary to afford the average home, there.
As a
standard rule of thumb, people shouldn’t buy a house that is more than 2.5 times their annual household income.
Only Leelanau, Washtenaw, Grand Traverse, Ottawa and Berrien counties have a wider discrepancy than Kalamazoo County between the median cost of a home and the median income.
(Check out the numbers for each county on the interactive map.)
A multifaceted problem
Multiple issues are at play.
One is a diminishing stock of affordable housing. Since the 2009 Great Recession, homebuilders have focused on upscale instead of starter homes, a trend that’s accelerated since the pandemic.
In the two decades before the recession, Kalamazoo County was averaging about 1,400 new housing units a year, according to Census data. That dropped to 724 units per year between 2010 and 2019. Between 2021 and 2023, it dropped again to 639 units per year.
Another factor: Many aging Baby Boomers are staying in their homes, and that lack of turnover means fewer homes for young families.
“Housing is an ecosystem,” Balkema says. “There’s naturally occurring housing” when older people downsize, allowing younger families to buy, and that’s not happening.
Meanwhile, the increase in interest rates post-pandemic made homeowners reluctant to sell.
“People are staying put because their house is affordable or they have this really low interest rate, which means all of a sudden, there’s no inventory,” Balkema says.
In addition, more people are living alone, whether it’s unmarried younger adults or the growing population of widowed and divorced senior citizens. Since 2000, the number of one-person households in Kalamazoo County has increased 27%. Fewer people per household increases the need for more housing units.
Yet another issue: Mobile or manufactured home parks, once a popular affordable housing option, have seen big increases in lot rental costs. You can buy a used manufactured home in the county for as little as $42,000, based on a recent Zillow listing, but it came with a $551 monthly lot lease, which more than doubles the monthly housing cost.
Ratio of homeowners’ income to median home value by county
Finally, Kalamazoo is among many urban communities living with
the legacy of redlining, Balkema says. That practice, which started in the 1930s, made it harder to get mortgages or home improvement loans in non-white neighborhoods. Homes in those neighborhoods became dilapidated because financing wasn’t available to maintain or upgrade them.
Although redlining was banned in 1968, neighborhoods like Kalamazoo’s Northside are still seeing the impact today, Balkema says.
Much of the aging housing stock in the Kalamazoo area needs significant rehabilitation, but young families often don’t have the money to do it, says Brian James Asquith, an economist with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
As a reflection of the housing crisis statewide, Balkema says, for the first time, the Michigan State Housing Development Authority is focused on folks at 120% of the
area median income, when it used to be 80%.
Housing has become a critical issue in trying to grow local economies, Balkema says.
“If we want a workforce, we have to focus on housing,” she says.
‘Lower the damn rent’
Rents have gone up, too.
In 2019, Kalamazoo County renters paid a monthly median of $824 for housing, including utilities. By 2023, it was $1,058, a 28% increase, based on Census data.
However, Census numbers include subsidized housing. Currently, the market-rate median rent in Kalamazoo County is about $1,200,
according to RentCafe.
Even including the numbers with subsidized housing, 48% of Kalamazoo County renters pay more than 30% of their gross income on housing, the latest Census data shows.
As someone who works with low-income families as a youth and family services manager, Hatfield sees others facing greater challenges than she has, while searching for housing.
“It’s an unfortunate kind of cycle,” she says.
A family might find a place where their credit isn’t an issue, but they can’t afford it. Or if their credit is an issue, they get a co-signer — but by the time they get things in order, the place has been claimed.
Some landlords require multiple months of rent paid upfront, she says, which is unattainable for many.
Landlords are free to charge any price they can get and there is no cap on rental rates. That means the competitive housing market allows landlords to charge more if they want.
Ryan Blankinship, 34, and his wife, Allison, 33, have been renting a room from a friend in Parchment after recently moving back to Michigan from Texas.
They want to find a place to rent, but multiple hurdles are holding them back. About $3,000 owed after an April eviction hasn’t been paid off yet. They’re chipping away, hundreds per month, with help from Allison’s mom. His criminal record is another obstacle, Blankinship says.
Both work full time -- he’s a clerk at Speedway and she works at Old Navy. But the prices they find are often unaffordable for them. Landlords ask for deposits that would take them months to save, Blankinship says.
He’s found places for $2,000 a month, but there’s no way they could afford that.
A decade ago, Blankinship says you could find a nice three-bedroom for $1,200 a month. Now, you’re lucky to get a one-bedroom “dump” for that, he says.
He hopes to finish paying off the eviction and get a home soon after. It won’t be smooth sailing after that — his credit is also an issue.
“We’ve got a couple more months to figure it out,” he says. “To save up and move the hell out.”
Space provided by friends and family is the only thing keeping them from being on the streets.
That safety net is
not something everyone has.
After previous roommates stole from them, Blankinship says the security of housing is important to them, but they’re finding it unaffordable.
“If y’all really cared about us surviving,” Blankinship says, “you’d lower the damn rent.”
No one seems to be listening, he says.
Another resident, Shona Espinoza, 43, moved out of her mother’s home, only to find unexpected rising rents.
One landlord increased her rent by $500. During a dispute over needed repairs, the owner told her to leave, she says. She then moved to an apartment complex, where the building was sold to a new owner and rent was raised from $910 per month to $1,350, she says.
“For what they were asking, it didn’t seem worth it, so I moved back with my parents,” Espinoza says.
Tristen Jessup, 37, an organizer with
We the People, says communities like Kalamazoo have seen an “extraordinary rise” in rent costs and landlords are charging whatever people are willing to pay.
“I don’t understand how that could be a model for providing someone with a necessity for living — a place to live,” she says. Jessup and the organization are pushing for the passage of a rent control bill and a tenants bill of rights in the Michigan Legislature.
“How do they expect people to have savings and build credit in order to get a home?” Jessup says.
Fighting for affordability
Organizations and governments in Kalamazoo are taking some action, though advocate Joanna Babcock and others say more is needed.
“Housing in Kalamazoo is broken,” Babcock says.
She often appears at Kalamazoo City Commission meetings, asking city leaders to take action, specifically by helping people at the lowest income levels.
She’s part of a group collecting “housing horror stories” from people in the community. They’re concerned the market is allowing property owners to take advantage of renters.
One plus for the Kalamazoo area is the county’s new housing millage — the first of its kind in Michigan — which is pumping millions of dollars into building new housing each year.
One project is
the purchase of 10 new manufactured homes to put at a mobile home park in Schoolcraft. Manufactured homes offer the biggest bang of the housing buck, Balkema says, but the key is keeping lot rentals reasonable.
If the project proves successful, it could be expanded, she says.
Asquith says the Kalamazoo area is doing some things right, noting the impact of free college through the Kalamazoo Promise and the lowering of city property taxes thanks to the
Foundation for Excellence.
Cities want to attract more residents. But that can be a double-edged sword.
Some of Kalamazoo’s successes make the housing market more expensive. A strong civic culture can have an unfortunate side effect of contributing to unaffordability, as an area becomes more popular, Asquith says.
He encourages the city and the county to keep doing what they’re doing.
Creating more multifamily homes would make an impact, as would helping young families improve their current homes, Asquith says.
Unfortunately, he believes we won’t see housing affordability anytime soon.
“We’re not going to go back, at least for a while, to the ‘50s or ‘60s, when (homes were) relatively affordable,” Asquith says.
Demand is too strong, and even more people are on the sidelines wanting to buy.
Home hunters are tired of waiting.
“I don’t need anything big,” Blankinship says. “We don’t have any kids — it would be nice one day. But just an area that’s ours, so we don’t have to worry about our stuff getting stolen or having to leave after a couple months.”
Blankinship hopes to buy a house some day.
Homeownership is one of the main ways to build generational wealth, experts say.
But many are being left out, making the concept merely a dream.
It’s hard to not get discouraged, Blankinship says.
They’ve gotten close to finding a place to rent a couple times, he says, only to have it slip away.
Hatfield knows the feeling.
Most factors are outside her control. She says she’ll probably have to keep renting until the market improves. In the meantime, she keeps her eyes open in case the right deal comes along.
“I’m feeling a little defeated about it,” Hatfield says. “It doesn’t feel super hopeful.”
They’ve gotten close to finding a place to rent a couple times, he says, only to have it slip away.
This story is part of a solutions-focused reporting series of Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative. The collaborative, a group of 12 regional organizations, is dedicated to strengthening local journalism and reporting on successful responses to social problems in Southwest Michigan. This story is funded by the Solutions Journalism Network.