Monday, December 04, 2006
Housing Alliance Survey Folderol
Just in time for Christmas the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania and Homes for Working Families have offered up the results of a survey they claim proves that voters are very concerned about affordable housing for working families. Of course, the purpose of releasing the study at this time (the survey was conducted in early June) is to convince elected officials to put the issue on the legislative agenda in the Session beginning in January. Get the General Assembly to start more programs and throw more money at the cause they make a living lobbying for. It’s not like governments don’t spend vast sums of money trying to provide “affordable housing” and have done so for decades.
But as we have cautioned on many occasions, survey results are no better than the questions asked, the methodology of the research and the credibility of the survey sample. This is especially true with the type of survey the Housing Alliance commissioned.
For one thing, the questions asked in the survey assume that everyone shares an understanding of what “affordability” means and what “working families” means. There is no indication that respondents were given definitions. So respondents were simply free to choose what they mean by affordability and working families. No doubt many of the respondents simply relied on a vague notion based on strands of information gathered over the years from news accounts, general reading or TV watching. Undoubtedly, the researchers did not have in mind families with two hard working entrepreneur business owners who routinely put in 70 hour weeks building and nurturing their business and their dreams.
And to make matters worse, the survey contains a series of questions designed to elicit the most favorable, non-contentious responses. For example, “people who work should not be homeless, agree or disagree. “ Or this, “If you work full-time you should be able to afford a home, agree or disagree.” And the researchers are surprised to find high levels of agreement?
We offer a more useful survey question; “Should a family earning $30,000 a year be able to afford to live in $300,000 house?” In other words, what does affordability mean? Or this, “Did you know that the ratio of median home price to median family income in the Pittsburgh region is one of the lowest in the nation?” Or better yet, to get at the real answer the Housing Alliance wants to hear, “Is it the government’s responsibility to make sure everyone has a job making good wages, lives in a nice four bedroom home on a quiet residential street that is only 15 minutes from his or her job, and provide a wonderful public school for the children?”
If the government of Pennsylvania cannot provide a “thorough and efficient system of public education,” as it is constitutionally required to do, why would we want it to take on these other tasks that are not required by the constitution and for which government programs almost invariably create more problems than they solve? Moreover, such programs continue the process of making the citizenry more and more dependent on government and more and more convinced that only government can deal with what should be primarily private matters despite all the evidence that government involvement rarely leads to better results than the free market.
Nowhere in the survey report, or the accompanying press release, do the authors bother to ask the obvious question, “If homes in Pennsylvania are increasingly unaffordable, why do average home prices in most of the state rise year after year?” Nor do the authors ask the question, “Are high property taxes forcing you to buy a less expensive home than you might other wise buy?” These would be politically incorrect and the answers would undermine the results the researchers were seeking.
And that’s the real issue with this survey and its findings. It was designed to elicit results by asking feel good, non-controversial questions with limited useful content. In short, it is a political document and not a research document. It was developed to stir up sympathy and compassion for a nebulous group of people who may or may not be really looking for help.
Interestingly, the report contains the seed of its own undoing in terms of its credibility. Asked if the lack of affordable housing for families earning $20,000 to $40,000 was a problem in their area, only 32 percent of those earning less than $20,000 per year said it was a problem, while 46 percent of those earning more than $75,000 thought it was a problem. What does this tell us? It tells us that those closest to the supposed problem see less of a problem than those who are the furthest removed from it. This finding should have told the researchers that their findings were driven by vague perceptions on the part of the respondent largely caused by the failure of the survey to establish meaningful definitions, perhaps along with some politically correct guilt induced by the tone of the leading questions. And that, of course, was no accident.
The Housing Alliance wants us to believe there is a need in Pennsylvania to push for more programs promoting affordable housing. What’s that? With public housing, Section 8 housing, low cost loans, FHA, VA, etc., etc., we don’t have enough programs already?
But as we have cautioned on many occasions, survey results are no better than the questions asked, the methodology of the research and the credibility of the survey sample. This is especially true with the type of survey the Housing Alliance commissioned.
For one thing, the questions asked in the survey assume that everyone shares an understanding of what “affordability” means and what “working families” means. There is no indication that respondents were given definitions. So respondents were simply free to choose what they mean by affordability and working families. No doubt many of the respondents simply relied on a vague notion based on strands of information gathered over the years from news accounts, general reading or TV watching. Undoubtedly, the researchers did not have in mind families with two hard working entrepreneur business owners who routinely put in 70 hour weeks building and nurturing their business and their dreams.
And to make matters worse, the survey contains a series of questions designed to elicit the most favorable, non-contentious responses. For example, “people who work should not be homeless, agree or disagree. “ Or this, “If you work full-time you should be able to afford a home, agree or disagree.” And the researchers are surprised to find high levels of agreement?
We offer a more useful survey question; “Should a family earning $30,000 a year be able to afford to live in $300,000 house?” In other words, what does affordability mean? Or this, “Did you know that the ratio of median home price to median family income in the Pittsburgh region is one of the lowest in the nation?” Or better yet, to get at the real answer the Housing Alliance wants to hear, “Is it the government’s responsibility to make sure everyone has a job making good wages, lives in a nice four bedroom home on a quiet residential street that is only 15 minutes from his or her job, and provide a wonderful public school for the children?”
If the government of Pennsylvania cannot provide a “thorough and efficient system of public education,” as it is constitutionally required to do, why would we want it to take on these other tasks that are not required by the constitution and for which government programs almost invariably create more problems than they solve? Moreover, such programs continue the process of making the citizenry more and more dependent on government and more and more convinced that only government can deal with what should be primarily private matters despite all the evidence that government involvement rarely leads to better results than the free market.
Nowhere in the survey report, or the accompanying press release, do the authors bother to ask the obvious question, “If homes in Pennsylvania are increasingly unaffordable, why do average home prices in most of the state rise year after year?” Nor do the authors ask the question, “Are high property taxes forcing you to buy a less expensive home than you might other wise buy?” These would be politically incorrect and the answers would undermine the results the researchers were seeking.
And that’s the real issue with this survey and its findings. It was designed to elicit results by asking feel good, non-controversial questions with limited useful content. In short, it is a political document and not a research document. It was developed to stir up sympathy and compassion for a nebulous group of people who may or may not be really looking for help.
Interestingly, the report contains the seed of its own undoing in terms of its credibility. Asked if the lack of affordable housing for families earning $20,000 to $40,000 was a problem in their area, only 32 percent of those earning less than $20,000 per year said it was a problem, while 46 percent of those earning more than $75,000 thought it was a problem. What does this tell us? It tells us that those closest to the supposed problem see less of a problem than those who are the furthest removed from it. This finding should have told the researchers that their findings were driven by vague perceptions on the part of the respondent largely caused by the failure of the survey to establish meaningful definitions, perhaps along with some politically correct guilt induced by the tone of the leading questions. And that, of course, was no accident.
The Housing Alliance wants us to believe there is a need in Pennsylvania to push for more programs promoting affordable housing. What’s that? With public housing, Section 8 housing, low cost loans, FHA, VA, etc., etc., we don’t have enough programs already?
