As a growing family, the last thing that should be keeping you up at night is whether you will have a roof over your head the next month or not.

Unfortunately, many families live with this anxiety each year when the yearly rental increases happen. Will it be $100? Or $500? Regardless, asking a family to allocate more of their income from the previous year is a daunting and, sometimes, impossible task.

Studies show that the average household should spend no more than 30% of its income on total occupancy costs to maintain affordability. Anything above that threshold indicates economic distress…this means that many families are experiencing this uncertainty firsthand.

Michelle Brandt, a wife, mother and environmental scientist, is one of them.

Drawn to Charleston after visiting here and staying with her sister-in-law while on vacation, she fell in love with it and envisioned her family growing old in the Lowcountry.

While they were originally looking in Virginia, her husband (much to her happiness) found a job in Charleston and moved in with his sister until he was able to find a place for his growing family.

While Michelle, pregnant at the time, waited in Maryland until her husband found somewhere for them to land, she daydreamed about the amazing opportunities this area would bring them.

They landed in West Ashley at Shadowmoss Pointe Apartments, where they stayed for two years until the rent was raised beyond what they were willing to spend for the space. At this point, they were about to be a family of four, but weren’t ready to buy anything, so they found a townhome in Oxford Place at a $1,500 price point, which was super challenging for them, but they were willing to sacrifice to make it work.

They stayed at the Oxford Place townhomes for about two years until the owner of the townhome was ready to sell. They found themselves back to square one, but with hopes they could find something a little bigger for their family of four, they hopped on Zillow to explore single family home opportunities.

Initially, the goal was to find a place that was in the same school district that her children were in, so they didn’t have to uproot them from their comfortable environment.

After many weeks of searching and coming up short, they were thrilled to find a home for rent in Grand Oaks, located in West Ashley, that could accommodate their family and give them great amenities to enjoy together.

During this time, and because of her volunteer experiences, community service work and firsthand knowledge of our region’s attainable housing crisis, her heart grew for public service, and she ran for the house in district 114 in West Ashley to try and make a difference.

Since 2021, the rent for this special home that they had found continued to rise, and Michelle and her husband lived in fear that the next bump in rent will leave them without a home once again.

A month before the election (October 2022), they got an email they were dreading…on top of the additional $100 the rent was raised the year before, the rent was going up an additional $400…

As much as they hate it, they are faced with the real possibility that Charleston may not be their forever home…not because their family doesn’t love it, but because they can’t afford to have a roof over their head.

Knowing that Michelle and her family aren’t alone in this, how do we fix this?

When asked what steps our region should take to make housing affordable, she immediately had her answers; educate the public on what attainable housing truly means and change our zoning to allow for multi-family units.

“The forgotten middle is a real thing,” said Michelle Brandt. “The limited availability of townhomes in our region makes it difficult for families to find something if they aren’t able to be homeowners just yet.”

Having called the Charleston region home for more than nine years, Michelle continues to be a fierce advocate for finding solutions to our housing attainability crisis. I have no doubt that you will see her name continuing to make a difference.

Join Michelle and many others in the Regional Housing Coalition – a grassroots initiative that advocates for attainable housing! You can also learn more about the Chamber’s Housing Attainability efforts here.