Housing Is a Problem Even in a State With Declining Population

SPEAKER_2 (0:02)

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Joe Weisenthal (0:18)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:22)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:24)

So Tracy, I get why a city like New York City, its housing is really expensive, it's really difficult to build. I mean, there's not a lot of space in New York City. I don't really blame New York City for not building a lot of new housing. Where would you put it, exactly?

Tracy Alloway (0:37)

Right. Manhattan is an island, seems somewhat limited. Plus, it has a giant park taking up a good chunk of it, so there's that.

Joe Weisenthal (0:44)

It seems NIMBYs are keeping it so that we can't develop on Central Park. But yeah, I get why housing is really strained in New York City. I don't blame anyone really for it. But it always seems like in the more rural locations, especially where there's not a lot of population growth, it should be really easy to build more houses or use the houses that people left when they moved. Yet, our impression is from past trips, etc., that there's a lot of strain on rural housing as well.

Tracy Alloway (1:12)

That's right. So we've done a few field trips to places like North Carolina, and we learned that even in an area that certainly is not as densely populated as Manhattan, there are housing issues. And now we are up here in Alaska, which, you know, if there's one thing I know about Alaska, it's that it is big.

Joe Weisenthal (1:30)

It's big, yeah.

Tracy Alloway (1:31)

Twice the size of Texas. Is that the stat that people use?

Joe Weisenthal (1:33)

It's something like that. It's incredible.

Tracy Alloway (1:35)

Something like that.

Joe Weisenthal (1:35)

There's got to be some empty space to build houses.

Tracy Alloway (1:38)

You would think, right? And yet, we're up here. And one of the things that people keep talking about over and over again is this idea of housing strains within Alaska, in Anchorage, too, which is where we are right now.

Joe Weisenthal (1:48)

Yeah, totally. And we have heard that multiple times. And so whatever the issue is, that sort of the story that we tell about Manhattan, there must be something more to it, because it's not just a matter of no space, because even places that are swimming in space have strains. And so I want to understand what that is. We've been up in Alaska. Listeners will remember our episode we did with Mary Daly and maybe some other ones that came out by the time this episode is coming out. But there's no way to understand a state without understanding its housing economy.

Tracy Alloway (2:18)

Absolutely not. And also, just because it's Alaska, the other thing I'm really interested in, and I think you might be interested in it too as a relatively new homeowner, is just the idea of maintenance on a house in Alaska. It must be insane, right? Like imagine how often you're replacing a roof in a place that gets like feet and feet and feet of snowfall every year.

Joe Weisenthal (2:39)

No, totally. All right. Well, we do in fact have the perfect guests. We are at the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. We are going to be speaking with Jimmy Ord. He is the Director of Research and Rural Development, as well as Daniel Delfino, Director of Planning and Program Development. So Jimmy and Daniel, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.

Jimmy Ord and Daniel Delfino (2:58)

Oh, thank you. This is Daniel. It's nice to be here. We appreciate the invitation to chat with your highly sophisticated group. This is Jimmy. Happy to be here.

Joe Weisenthal (3:06)

Well, thank you both for having us at your office. What are you just for listeners? Tell us, what do you do and what is the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation?

Jimmy Ord and Daniel Delfino (3:14)

Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. This is Jimmy. We are an organization that addresses safe, quality, affordable housing in Alaska. That's our mission. In the early 90s, in the state of Alaska, they took the different housing departments and the housing finance agency, and they put them under one roof. In many other states, you can have housing departments maybe in the Department of Commerce or under revenue or under some other function of the state, where we get to walk across the hall and talk to our counterparts in the mortgage department or the finance department, public housing division. We're an organization that is all things housing in the state of Alaska. And that's really helped with collaboration and getting programs and services out the door.