Internet Access, Housing and the Poor
To bridge the digital divide, many publicly funded, new low-income living units are being wired for access, by (Oregon) state directiveMonday, November 22, 2004
KARA BRIGGS
Springwater Commons, a new town-house development for the poor in Southeast Portland, has energy-efficient windows, a children’s playground — and wiring for high-speed Internet service.
Such connections are becoming standard not only in the Portland area’s market-rate rentals, but also in new construction statewide for low-income tenants.
Oregon now requires builders of affordable housing to install DSL, cable broadband or wireless access if they get federal dollars administered by the state. Last week, developers of 18 affordable-housing projects were awarded federal grants and will install high-speed Internet connections in more than 450 apartments. Many are offering tenants free or subsidized monthly Internet service.
The access requirement pushes Oregon to the front of a national movement to bridge what’s become known as the digital divide. The advocates think high-speed Internet access will make low-income youths better students and help their parents work through problems that put the family in poverty.
“A simple way to look at it is that people without Internet access are at a disadvantage,” said Portland city Commissioner Erik Sten. “The idea is that people use affordable housing to stabilize their lives and to help their families thrive.” One Economy Corp., a national nonprofit with a Portland office, is working nationwide to get high-speed Internet in new housing for the poor and the elderly.
As of last summer, about 25 percent of all U.S. households had Internet access, according to research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The percentage rises as household income increases.
In a few years, high-speed Internet is likely to be as basic to U.S. homes as telephones, Dave McConnell, a One Economy Corp. vice president, predicted. That’s why the nonprofit advocates that the approximately 200,000 low-income apartments a year built using federal tax-credit financing have high-speed Internet access. Installing it now, he said, will save nonprofit owners from having to retrofit apartments with technology.
“The digital divide for poor people still exists, primarily in terms of high-speed Internet access,” he said.
Every unit wired
All of Springwater Commons, with One Economy technical support, has high-speed Internet connections.
The two-story, green complex on Southeast 128th Avenue at Foster Road has apartments with three, four and five bedrooms, an almost unheard of size in Portland’s apartment market. They are for large, working-poor families who need bedrooms for children and elderly relatives, said Martha McLennan, the executive director of Northwest Housing Alternatives, which built the complex.
Likely renters include immigrant families from Russian-speaking, Latino and African countries. They will have many uses for the Internet, she said, such as finding information in their native languages and keeping in e-mail contact with relatives around the globe.
It costs about $300 per apartment to wire a complex such as Springwater Commons, a small amount compared with overall construction costs, said Sten.
One Economy Corp. helps by contracting with such developments to wire, build networks and design custom Web sites to help tenants find local services.
But it can be difficult for developers — who usually piece together government grants and choose among extras such as green building, in-home laundry facilities and the Internet — to make projects such as the $5.3 million Springwater Commons pencil out. Even relatively small costs can break a budget, said Bob Repine, director of the state Department of Housing and Community Services.
“Sustainable development doesn’t always have to be about the fish and the trees,” he said. “It can be about people.”
More access needed
For several years, developers of affordable-housing projects have been putting one or two computers with Internet access in community rooms. But people need more access, McLennan said.
“We have a seniors building where the competition for the computer is a big tension point among tenants,” she said. “They tell each other, ‘Your half hour is up!’ ”
Complexes such as Springwater Commons can keep Internet costs low by buying a single DSL commercial account for about $80 a month. At that rate, McLennan can offer the service free to renters. Other complexes charge $5 to $15 a month, far less than the $30 to $50 typical home subscribers pay.
It’s easier than ever for low-income people to get a computer, Sten said. Some can buy basic new computers; others find free used ones. Springwater Commons is offering free computers as an early move-in bonus.
The Polk Community Development Corp. in Dallas, Ore., sells refurbished computers from One Economy for $50 to tenants of Woodbridge Meadow, an affordable housing complex that opened two years ago.
Woodbridge Meadow was one of the first in the state to be wired, said Rita Grady, the corporation’s executive director. Now about half the 40 tenants use their in-home connection, and Grady hopes to increase that number by starting basic computer classes.
“I think the young people need it because they’re moving up into an age where practically everything they are going to be doing will be related to this kind of technology,” she said.
Nationally, poor people lag behind in Internet access, said John Horrigan, a senior researcher at the Pew Internet and American Life Project. About half as many low-income households have home computers, compared with 64 percent of middle-income households, he said. Fewer than 10 percent of households earning less than $20,000 a year have high-speed Internet, which doesn’t surprise Grady.
“If something has to go it’s not going to be food or clothing or rent,” she said. “It’s going to be the computer.”
But Horrigan said underfinanced social service agencies and government social programs, such as Medicare, are increasingly using the Internet as a low-cost way to reach clients. This is information that poor people can’t afford to miss.
“If the government is going to go to the trouble of building new housing,” Horrigan said, “They might as well make it with all the amenities of the 21st century.”
Kara Briggs: 503-294-5936; karabriggs@news.oregonian.com
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Tags: digital divide