
Remember Archie Bunker? Not really? That’s OK—it’s an old reference.
Archie Bunker was the protagonist of the hit 1970s sitcom All in the Family. As the series name implies, he was a family man—hardworking, gruff, charming, and bigoted in a way that wouldn’t fly on television today.
But that’s not the only thing about Archie that doesn’t stand the test of time. Because in the 1970s, on his salary as a New York loading-dock foreman, Archie and his family rented a home in Flushing, Queens. In today’s world, that math doesn’t work. Archie would earn a salary of roughly $50,000 per year now, enough to realistically afford a rent of about $1,250 per month. The Bunkers’ home would rent for at least twice that. And don’t get me started on the rent-controlled fantasies of Friends or Seinfeld!
That’s a lot of talk about long-gone television, but it demonstrates a very real problem. A nationwide crisis that, in my 25 years in affordable housing development, I’ve seen grow from a conversation into a full-blown national crisis.
Most people and most policymakers don’t fully grasp the ripple effects the affordable housing crisis has on our economy and within communities around the country. That’s why I’ve chosen to put my full support behind Home1, a new campaign to shine a spotlight on America’s housing crisis and bring together the politicians, social leaders, and the development community to create solutions to this growing problem.
The State of Affordable Housing
The truth is that today, there’s nowhere in America where a full-time minimum-wage job is enough to afford a one-bedroom apartment.
Over the past two decades, incomes have remained flat while housing costs have soared, with median asking rents increasing by 70% when adjusted for inflation. Today, families simply have to pay more for basic shelter, and only one in four families who qualify for housing assistance is actually able to get help. People who can least afford it often pay 50%, 60%, or even 80% of their income to keep a roof over their heads in the private rental market.
Housing costs have pushed many Americans into a precarious balance where one injury, unexpected expense, or late paycheck is enough to tip them into a cycle of homelessness: 2.7 million people per year are kicked out of their homes because they can’t afford their rent (that’s one family every 11 seconds). That statistic will only get bleaker as our nation’s growing need for affordable housing continues to outpace our ability to build it.
Increasing the Affordable Housing Supply
As much as we need to create more affordable housing, it’s absolutely vital that we preserve the supply of existing housing that, without careful management and renovation, will become market-rate housing that is out of financial reach for the people who need it most.
Fortunately, preserving and renovating that housing is a business model that works. Since I entered this industry and founded Vitus two decades ago, we’ve successfully worked with private investors, communities, and government agencies to sustain affordable housing properties and prevent them from becoming unattainable market-rate developments.
In our work, we convert existing buildings into designated low-income housing and also turn aging infrastructure into affordable, modern homes that include features such as community gardens and playgrounds as well as offer health and wellness programs, such as exercise and art classes, afterschool programs, and more.

Together, we’ve preserved more than 10,000 units across 23 states for the people who most need them—seniors who need a place to stay active and age with dignity, and working families that need a safe, healthy place to raise their children.
I’m proud of our work, but there’s still much to do. And, as Home1 demonstrates, it will take a lot more than one affordable housing developer to overcome our nation’s affordability crisis; it will take a coordinated movement to create the change our country needs.
What We Can Accomplish Together
Solving this problem requires widespread awareness of the crisis by the public, policymakers, and the industry. To motivate change, there must first be a deep understanding of the true social cost and the daily impact the crisis has on the Archie Bunkers of today: our tradespeople, service industry professionals, emergency responders, and teachers—the people who allow our nation to thrive.
Yet, as a community of real estate developers, financiers, designers, builders, and city planners, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to do more and help ensure that the most vulnerable in our communities have safe, healthy, affordable places to live.
Here’s what you can do right now:
Join the Home1 campaign. A simple share of the Home1 videos on social media will help us spark a national dialogue about affordable housing that’s long overdue.
Reach out to your elected officials. Remind them we need to develop housing policies that create affordable housing options in centers of economic activity—the cities where jobs are available but affordable places to safely raise a family are not. Whether we achieve that through zoning laws, land-use restrictions, or other approaches, we need our leaders to focus on this problem and identify a path toward addressing it.
Advocate locally for affordable housing. Help ensure that the places where low- and fixed-income people live in your area aren’t replaced by market-rate housing accessible only to the fortunate few.
And if you’re a developer, take it from me: Creating affordable housing that revitalizes communities is a business model that works. One property at a time, we can turn the tide on our nation’s affordable housing crisis.