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ALICE Can't Afford Wonderland Anymore

June 28, 2021

ALICE Can't Afford Wonderland Anymore

Stephine Deeren is an Integrative Studies Senior at GVSU Traverse City Regional Center. Her senior project concentrated on the ALICE population in the Grand Traverse County region. Her focus became an opportunity for Stephine to further explore a population of people that she has worked with and related to on a personal level.

What’s the ALICE population? ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed. ALICE is defined as, “[a] category of working people whose household income is above the federal poverty limit, but below what is needed to provide the basic necessities of living,” (Burgess, 2021).

Stephine is a 31-year-old native of Traverse City living in the same designated tourist town for all but one year of her life, until this year, when she had to move due to continued difficulty finding affordable living. It became an ironic realization as Stephine completed her ALICE senior project focused on the difficulties people like her faced with holding full-time jobs but not being able to afford living in the wonderland that Traverse City is.

Stephine looked back at her adult life and shared her journey as well as steps to help the community of people like herself. When graduating high school in 2007, she started college at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) right away with an earned 2-year scholarship to receive her associates degree.

Everything changed for Stephine when she became pregnant with her beautiful daughter during her first semester at NMC. She became a single mom at eighteen with a fast transition into the adult world and what it meant to provide for herself and now her daughter.

Stephine said, “I grew up with this assumption that if I worked hard and did well, I could provide for myself and my family- when in actuality life got harder and the ability to afford living got more difficult as a single parent. I had to rely on my family, and I would not be here today without them.”

As a young single mom, Stephine has had to endure a low-income household her entire adult life. She has always held a full-time Job working in social work along with other occupations. During that time, she witnessed other families also struggling to provide for their household and saw the stress that she too felt. When working temporarily at a homeless shelter Stephine was surprised to find many did have jobs but did not make enough to afford a place of their own.

Stephine recalled, “Although I have never been homeless, I can empathize with the struggle many individuals and families face in my community. I often find myself asking aloud, “Where are all of the affordable rentals?””

Throughout her adult life Stephine has experienced concerning patterns of displacement regarding low-income households, increased amount of new development, increased tourism, and increased cost of living. More notably, an increase in rental prices, housing market prices, and a decrease in availability.

Stephine explained, “As a low-income household, I’ve experienced firsthand the struggle of increasing rent prices in Traverse City, Michigan. The same apartment I rented in a complex close to downtown in 2013 was $200 more a month in 2015.”

Stephine shared eye-opening research she identified while completing her senior project;  

  •  “In Grand Traverse County, 24% of households are considered ALICE. 9% fall below the federal poverty limit (Burgess, 2021). In total, 33% of households are struggling to survive in Grand Traverse County.”
  •  “In 2017, the median new home price in the Traverse City area was $437,000, according to data from the Home Builders Association of Michigan shared by Housing North. To afford it, a household would need to earn $116,000 per year. By comparison, the median household income in the rest of Grand Traverse County was $58,229 that year, according to Census estimates. Fewer than a quarter of county households earned more than $100,000 in 2017,” (VanHulle, 2019).
  • “Housing wage is the required hourly rate an individual must make to afford a two-bedroom rental home. For Michigan, this rate is $17.42 an hour. Minimum wage in Michigan is $9.65 an hour. There is a $7.77 difference between the minimum hourly rate it takes to afford a two-bedroom rental and what someone makes working minimum wage.”
  •  “To be able to afford a two-bedroom rental working minimum wage, a worker would need to work 72 hours a week. For a one-bedroom rental home a minimum wage worker would need to work 57 hours a week (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2020). So, minimum wage workers either need a second person with an income, work two or more jobs, and/or work one full time job that allows for overtime.”

Stephine is not stopping at her Senior Project. She identified three starting point steps that she will be presenting to the Grand Traverse Board of Commissioners. While they are not the full answer to affordable living, they are a great starting point to help make a change.

FIRST STEPS

CHANGE POINT OF VIEW

Assess the income needs of the population and include that in economic policymaking. Low unemployment cannot be the standard at which economic success is valued, our society must now turn to ALICE rates instead (Michigan, 2019).

RENTAL CAP POLICIES

Start a discussion of community beneficial legislation with all stakeholders in the community. Everyone must come together to discuss county wide rental cap policies.

ASSESS WHAT BARRIERS EXIST FOR THE ALICE POPULATION

barriers to receiving assistance could provide as a reason ALICE households have increased within the last few years in the area. In order to get the maximum benefit from our local non-profits, barriers need to be researched further and be dismantled.

While Stephine did have to move away to find a place where she can work and afford to live, she remains enthusiastic about her wonderland hometown of Traverse City and will continue to help be the change in the community.

"THE GREATNESS OF A COMMUNITY IS MOST ACCURATELY MEASURED BY THE COMPASSIONATE ACTIONS OF ITS MEMBERS."- Coretta Scott King

Learn more about how you can further your education and make an impact in your community through GVSU’s Traverse City Regional Center. 

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Page last modified June 28, 2021