Resilience is an important survival mechanism for individuals and families. Resilience usually implies not just enough to survive, but more than enough. When it comes to maintaining a roof over one’s head, a steady salary may be essential. But something more is needed to guard against the unexpected, for example a bout of ill health, an accident to a car essential to commuting. Savings are a vital means of creating family resilience. Borrowing power can also help.
Because the lowest income families often have neither savings, nor borrowing power, they are at greatest risk of becoming homeless. With housing prices soaring, whether rental or purchase, the lack of affordable housing eats up more and more of a family’s income. A single unexpected event can result in homelessness, from which recovery can be exceedingly difficult, even impossible.
For an example of this on this increasingly prevalent problem which plays out worldwide, read more about Kansas City homelessness at KCHB: Homeless Center Seeing ‘Unreal’ Uptick Due To Rising Rent, Lack Of Affordable Housing
A lack of resilience, however, is not just an issue for individuals and families, it is a disease of businesses, and indeed, entire communities. A lack of affordable housing can rob both businesses and communities of the resilience they need to survive an unexpected calamity.
Read how businesses are suffering from a lack of staff in a Texas county, more than a year after Hurricane Harvey damaged towns and cities at KZTV: Harvey-caused lack of affordable housing causing staffing problems
It might be tempting to dismiss Hurricane Harvey’s impact on affordable housing as atypical and not reflective of business resilience under more normal circumstances. But in fact, other business associations are speaking up, warning that the lack of affordable housing is indeed affecting the daily lives not just of individuals, but entire nations. Read a recent example from Ireland in the Irish Times: Cost Of Housing Has Now Become ‘Material Threat’ To Our Prosperity — ISME
