Summary
A growing number of Americans are seeking shelter in budget motels due to rising rents and home prices, with families experiencing cramped, unstable living conditions.
In New York’s Hudson Valley, over 550 families with children lived in motels in 2023, a 21% increase from 2018.
High costs, safety concerns, and limited housing options make escaping this cycle difficult.
Advocacy groups warn motels are an unsustainable solution as housing costs outpace wages, while waitlists for subsidized housing and vouchers remain long.
You’ll own nothing and be happy…
Well I suppose the second part isn’t entirely true
My mom and stepdad lived in a motel for 5 years. Saved up and then bought a house. I did the motel thing before myself. Sure beats sleeping on the streets.
And Why aren’t people having children again? 🤔 Please remind me.
It’s because women have rights and somehow the transgenders are to blame.
Something something family values
I live in this area. We’ve always had an income/poverty problem. There has been an “extended stay” hotel problem for a long time. Ulster is a pretty poor county. The problem in the area is there’s very little industry that pays well. There was a big State Hospital that closed down several years back that lost jobs and pushed people with mental health issues into an already poor town’s strained social services network and guaranteeing a never ending struggle to lift the town out of poverty. IBM has a campus, but it’s steadily retracted over the last several decades. Iron Mountain is another tech business that has decent pay. There are several all inclusive resorts that cater to the wealthy ($400/night, nothing locals could afford to visit) that still pay standard service wages. The whole area survived on tourist money as the wealthy metro-area people had their second homes up in the Hudson Valley, would drive there on weekends or picturesque fall days for apple-picking, and then leave.
Then covid hit, they fled the boroughs, and bought all the available housing sending prices through the roof. Mediocre early 1900’s homes that what could be had for $200k now started at $350k and end up over $400k in same day bidding wars.
The Hudson Valley has been poor for decades. Known as a “rough area” in some cases, still is in towns like Newburgh despite the price hike in housing.
Everyone’s getting priced out, and there’s no commensurate increase in good-paying jobs to help the regular people. It also means any commute to the city takes 15-20% longer because RTO turned WFH people into commuters.
It’s shitty because there’s no benefit for locals.
Don’t forget the $8k annual tax bill that goes along with that already unaffordable house. I grew up near the area and love to visit but it’s a hard place to get by for what it is, if that makes sense
You’re not wrong. Like I said, very little good industry to make up for the CoL. I really despise how they do prop/school taxes every year. If you live south of 84 the taxes get outrageous quickly, it’s essentially a second mortgage. They’re cheaper further north…sorta, but again the big problem is that there’s no industry to tax, so the people pay it all. Closer to the metro they charge for the infrastructure and wages. No escape. I grew up in an area where taxes were cheaper and went into a slush fund and then paid out across the state, so a shared burden. Not like NY where they slap you with two big bills 2x/yr if you don’t have a mortgage. Should be monthly with autopay. F those big bills. I don’t care how long you live there, they’re still a shocker.
America will get there.
You joke but I’d love that for traveling
i mean they exist… i almost stayed in one in berlin last summer
Seriously I’d love hotels like this $9.99 a night in central Tokyo. If they had something like this in NYC, it would open up so many economic opportunites for regular people to establish employment, and move up on the economic ladder.
I stayed in a capsule like that on an overnight ferry when all the cabins were booked. It beats sleeping in a recliner seat.
My wife had a hard time sleeping because of someone snoring loudly in the capsule next to her, but I slept like a log.
They should be sound proof or at least monitored by a snore attendant. Or just have a snoring/no snoring section. Maybe I should get into pod management.
I stayed in one years ago after moving to a new city and it surprised me to see a school bus stop and pick up kids living there.
I grew up in the rural midwest in the 90s and every year our school bus would pick several kids up from the local motel. Except they were always different kids, because they were Mexican families who were working temporary jobs, I assume related to potato farming or sugarbeets but I never really knew. Anyway it was often 2-3 kids coming out of each room so families of 4-5 to a single motel room. And then they’d get on a school bus and spend all day getting bullied by racist redneck white kids.
Couple years ago was traveling through Kansas and saw a family of 3 moving into a hotel. Honestly broke my heart seeing it.
I know of at least 1 person in this situation, but that’s because he accidentally sold his house because he didn’t want his neighbors to give him weird looks while he smoked in front of his house.
Kingston, New York:
“It’s a chain of events that could have been avoided had there been a place for the family to rent for $1,200 a month”
1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 875 square feet. $1,200.
https://www.realtor.com/rentals/details/37-Millers-Ln_Kingston_NY_12401_M94353-27149
1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 720 square feet. $1,207.
https://www.realtor.com/rentals/details/45-N-Chestnut-St_New-Paltz_NY_12561_M95190-54232
Two person max, first and last month’s rent, credit check, black list check, utilities, parking fee, amenities fee, security deposit, pet rent, price raise after 3 months.
Landlords are out of control.
Story is about a mom and daughter with a $1,200 limit, it seems do-able to me based on a 30 second internet search.
Your 30 seconds search turned up 2 results at the limit of what this family could afford, without including the additional costs such as utilities, parking, … + all other stuff that the other person mentioned. Which means that those results are significantly outside their budget.
If their budget is 1200 $/month, then they cannot afford an apartment with that list price. My guess would be that they could afford a list price of 800 to 900 $/month, maybe 1000 $/month if a parking spot was included in the rent. But I don’t live there, so this is just a bad guess.
It’s not the limit of what the family can afford, it’s the limit at which the journalist says their problems are solved.
There are cheaper places, but I picked the two at the limit with the largest square footage.
If they can survive in a hotel room, they can get a studio apartment for $700/$800 and be cheaper than renting a hotel room.
Ah, the Resilient Jenkins approach.
Is that Leroy’s cousin?
That lady wishes she could be known for something like Leroy Jenkins.
Nah, she’s one of those family youtubers with a bunch of children, and they came under fire recently because it was found out that they live in a one bedroom apartment and her and her fiance share the bedroom while her kids slept on mattresses in the kitchen.
Well that was an interesting little rabbit hole. Stop having kids, lady.
