What’s the Most Important Housing Cost? Striking a Balance Between Memories and Financial Health

Images by Kade Alpers Photography

SaverLife member Felecia has a hate-love relationship with her home. It’s the gateway to the Harlem community that she’s known and loved her entire life. But the pains of renting from an absentee landlord have posed unexpected challenges to her financial health.

Felecia’s housing experiences pose an ongoing question about her future: should she move elsewhere? And where will she go to afford rent, maintain financial stability, and still have ties to her support network? Read on to learn how Felecia is navigating housing in New York City and redefining her goals of homeownership.

Building financial stability post college

Felecia was born and raised in Harlem. A daughter of immigrants, she has a deep appreciation for the work they put in to build a safe and comfortable home for her and her two siblings. “I’ve never been homeless, but my parents once lived with my father's side of the family in a situation they weren't comfortable with,” she explains. “That's why they always made it a priority to set aside money for rent.”

As a native to New York City, Felecia felt like she was exposed to a lot of different lifestyles from a young age. In particular, taking the subway to and from school gave her an early education on the different realities people face. “Nothing shocks me anymore,” she says. But what she wasn’t prepared for as a young adult were the expenses she’d navigate after college. “There was a hiring freeze when I graduated college 10 years ago,” she describes. “I applied to so many jobs within my major that I didn’t get. I was very discouraged after three years of job searching, so that’s when I took a job in the food industry to survive.”

To reduce her expenses during this period, Felecia moved back in with her parents, and they split the rent between them. It was relieving to know that she always had a safe place to return to, but frustrating to be a college graduate who couldn’t maintain financial stability. “I felt guilty because I felt like I was supposed to be out of [my parents’ house] by then. I felt like I was supposed to have my own place.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered restaurants, Felecia felt even more strain on her finances. She threw herself back into her job search, and eventually found a career position. Now, for the first time, Felecia feels like her financial health is improving. She can cover rent, utilities, medical insurance, her phone bill, and even have money left over for savings. But Felecia still feels like she hasn’t reached her ideal form of financial health yet. “When I think of financial health, I think of financial wholeness. So it's not just my finances, but my mental health at the same time,” she describes. “Financial health to me will be that I attract not just more money, but I attract goodness that keeps coming my way.”

Balancing repair costs against comfort

Although her financial health has improved, Felecia’s experiences with housing have gotten more mixed. She’ll be the first to acknowledge that she and her parents’ living situation is comfortable and convenient. But what gets Felecia about their housing is that it’s posing new financial challenges she didn’t anticipate with more stable finances.

Because they live in an old building, Felecia’s apartment often needs repairs — on the plumbing, heating, and even the washer and dryer. The trouble is her landlord is slow to respond and often won’t do anything at all to improve the situation. Felecia’s left with two choices: to pay for the repairs — and hope that the landlord will reimburse her — or live with the damage until it’s finally taken care of. If she lived alone, Felecia might be more inclined to wait for repairs and deal with problems like flooding or faulty HVAC.

But she doesn’t expect her retired parents to live under the same conditions. “Wintertime's coming up,” she adds. “So heat — or the possibility of a lack of heat — makes us nervous. They cranked up our hot water which is nice, but we still need reliable heat.”

When she’s particularly tired of dealing with their living conditions, Felecia often thinks about moving to another place like Upstate New York. But besides needing to get her driver’s license, Felecia doesn’t plan to leave Harlem because of the relocation and housing costs. She and her parents’ apartment is protected under a local program similar to Section 8, which caps their rent at a percentage comparable to their annual income. And between her salary and her parents’ social security, Felecia doesn’t feel that they can afford an apartment that’s much bigger or better than their current home if they have to pay current market prices.

Community is priority

Another reason why Felecia is hesitant to leave Harlem is the community. She has family close by, a support network of neighbors and friends, and local restaurants that she can frequent when she’s craving authentic Caribbean food. Felecia also feels that her parents deserve to enjoy the community that they worked so hard to build a life in. “That’s their success story,” she explains. “Just being able to live together in an apartment that’s their own.”

Even so, the Harlem that she loves and wants to continue enjoying is slowly changing. Felecia says that gentrification is transforming their neighborhood and pushing out other immigrant families who have played a big role in preserving the local Caribbean heritage: “Big businesses are coming. 125th Street looks basically like 34th Street now, and that's not how it was when I was growing up. I'm sad about it.”

Despite Harlem shifting around her, Felecia stays optimistic about housing by aspiring to purchase her own property. Because she grew up watching her parents help others in need, Felecia sees homeownership as a responsibility: to provide for the people in her community and offer support where she can. Ideally, this would look like her purchasing a duplex and giving one half to her parents and the other half to a family who would benefit from affordable rent. She hasn't figured out the logistics just yet, but she’s confident this is one way she can really make a difference for others.

She concludes: “I know my parents received help when they first came here…So if I can give back to somebody, I will.”

(We extend out gratitude to Deutsche Bank for their generous philanthropic support, which has made it possible for this important story to be shared.)