When people talk about affordable housing, it can sound simple from a distance. Just build cheaper homes. Just make the numbers work. Just lower the price.
But the truth on the ground is harder than that.
In Shawnee County, the need is real. According to the latest ALICE data, 27% of households are ALICE households and another 13% of households are living in poverty. That means 40% of households are living below the ALICE Threshold and are struggling to afford the basics. The county’s median household income is $62,512, which is below the Kansas average of $70,333.
That is part of the housing reality in front of us.
And it is why conversations about affordability need to be honest.
A recent Johnson County Post article highlighted a proposed 1,600 square foot home in Overland Park at $400,000. That comes out to about $250 per square foot.
Even when you adjust that number for the cost-of-living difference between Overland Park and Topeka, the equivalent is still about $369,600, or about $231 per square foot.
Now compare that to a 1,250 square foot home in Topeka at $195,000. That comes out to about $156 per square foot.
That means the Topeka example is:
- $205,000 lower in total price
- about $94 lower per square foot than the Overland Park example
- still far below the cost-of-living-adjusted equivalent for Topeka
And even then, many households would still struggle to reach it.
That is the tension communities across Kansas are facing.
On one side, a great many households are already financially stretched. On the other side, the real cost of building housing has climbed to a place that many people do not fully see. Materials cost more. Labor costs more. Land development costs more. Infrastructure costs more. Financing is harder. Insurance is higher. Every part of the system puts pressure on the final price.
So when people ask why affordable housing is hard to produce, part of the answer is that there is often a real gap between what housing costs to build and what many families can realistically afford.
That gap does not close on hope alone. It usually takes subsidy, partnership, patience, creativity, and a willingness to face reality instead of pretending the numbers are easier than they are.
As I traveled the state through Leadership Kansas, one thing became even clearer: the days when communities could reliably produce quality homes at $70 a square foot are gone. Across Kansas, the cost to build affordable housing is higher than many people realize. The public conversation often talks about affordability at the point of sale. The harder conversation is what it actually costs to produce a home in today’s market.
This is not meant as a criticism of the organization doing the work in Johnson County. Their work is hard, and it is happening in a very hard environment. The comparison simply helps show how difficult the housing environment is right now, whether you are working in Johnson County, Topeka, or anywhere else.
That is also why affordability cannot just mean that a home exists. It has to mean there are real pathways for people to access it.
For some households, that may require lower sale prices. For others, it may require down payment support, flexible financing, public subsidy, or employer-assisted pathways to ownership. In other words, solving the housing challenge will take more than one product and more than one strategy.
That is true across the whole economic range.
We are living in a tough time. We all need grace and a dose of reality. We might not like what we see, and we can still face it together with hope and the resolve to work through the hurdles in front of us.
Housing affordability is not just a matter of opinion. It is a matter of math, systems, policy, and collective will.
And the more honest we are about that, the better chance we have of building solutions that actually work.
Johnson County Post article:
Cost of living comparison, Overland Park vs. Topeka:
SENT Housing page:
SENT Teacher Housing Stability and Retention Initiative: