“Families in this region have been booted out the backside of a housing market that has sprinted away from them faster than they can keep up with,” said Adam Bosch, CEO of Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress. “These are now working households living in hotels on public assistance. They are grocery store workers, they’re certified nurses assistants, they’re child care workers, they’re restaurant servers and cooks, they’re people making $16 to $20 an hour, who typically in this region would have been able to find a modest rent somewhere, but now those modest rents are gone.”
At the same time, the region’s housing supply has been somewhat constricted by short-term rentals. Of the 400,000 homes in the region, about 13% aren’t occupied full time, including around 6,000 that are regularly booked as short-term rentals on Airbnb and Vrbo, a 20% increase from before the pandemic, according to data from analytics firm AirDNA.
‘I just want that back’
Krajewski and her family began renting a three-bedroom apartment in 2017 for $1,000 a month in a house that had been divided into multiple rental units near downtown Kingston, where a growing number of trendy bars, restaurants and boutiques have been opening to cater to the crowd of second-home owners and weekend visitors. It was a comfortable amount on her husband’s salary as a roofer and her income as a home health aide.
Then, at the end of 2021, Krajewski was notified that her rent would be going up to $1,400 a month, outside of what she felt the family could afford. She began looking for another place, but she was entering a housing market seeing unprecedented levels of demand.
In Ulster County, home prices have risen more than 70% since the start of the pandemic, with the typical home now listed for $563,000, according to data from Realtor.com. At current interest rates, a household would have to make around $120,000 a year to be able to afford that home with a 20% down payment on a 30-year mortgage — well above the $85,000 median household income for those living in the county.
With buying a home increasingly out of reach, more families are continuing to rent, putting added pressure on the rental market. The average rents in Ulster County have risen 28% since 2020 to around $1,500 a month, according to data from rental website Zumper. A survey by county officials found that the median advertised rent in Ulster County for a studio apartment was $1,086 a month last year, with two-bedroom units listed for $1,836 a month.
After weeks of searching for another place, Krajewski came up empty-handed. With nowhere to go, the family was evicted and placed at a shelter for homeless families by the county’s Department of Social Services.
After six months at the shelter and still unable to find an apartment, the family moved in with Krajewski’s mother, where they lived for a year and a half. But eventually, that living arrangement became untenable and the family decided to split up — something they expected to be a temporary solution. Krajewski’s husband moved in with his mother, their teenage son joining him, and Krajewski and her daughters were placed at a motel by the county.
Now, Krajewski is among the more than 150 homeless adults and children living in the Kingston Motel, once a destination for tourists seeking to enjoy the area’s mountains, rivers and forests. Tipped-over tricycles and small bikes lay on the motel’s parking lot, strollers are parked outside of rooms, and children loiter on the jungle gym and swing set in the motel’s courtyard.
There are so many children living at the motel that the school buses regularly stop there and local organizations have put together after-school programs to keep the kids occupied.
