Jeff Rosenberg wrote:
WM: Actually, if you look closely at the contractual paperwork around much of the housing being built, you will find that "affordable" has changed. Affordable is used to designate 80% of the average income in some places, 50% in others, but seldom 30%.What I find most interesting about this, and what I'd like to question, is the underlying assumption behind these statements. Specifically, that Minneapolis has an obligation to the poor and to create "affordable housing."
The federal government used to house the poor, beginning during WWII, I think, in projects. Those who lived in them were poor, poor now that their husbands were fighting the war, or elderly. Those who were too wealthy for the projects (yes, there are poor people too wealthy for the projects) if they bought houses did so after the wealthy moved away, allowing the middle class to move into their houses, and the working class to move into the middle class houses. Those who moved as part of white flight, often left houses to rental uses, cut back on maintenance, disinvested in the property. Then red lining took over and, voila, a slum.
Some of the reasons for building housing for the poor included sanitation and a desire to cut epidemic diseases in cities. In the city I came from, slum housing was that built in the early 19th century. It was close to the river and prone to rats about a foot long plus tail. The rats would attack sleeping babies in their cribs, come up through toilets added after houses were built, and of course appear wherever sanitation was not good. The electricity, plumbing, etc. were impossible, they were heated poorly by fireplaces or dangerous kerosene space heaters. They were very close together and a considerable fire hazard.
However, it is greatly to the city's advantage to have a stable house with people who are not into causing mischief or committing crimes against either people or things, who will do a lot of the work a city needs doing--driving buses, being janitors, secretaries, nurses aides, factory workers. I bought an old house, built 1912, deserted by all and sundry, but one which could easily work well for another 75 years, making it affordable housing.
When I bought it in 1997, the PITI was $428/mo. Affordable. Five people who would otherwise be homeless live here. It is not a garden spot--it's on Lake St. This year taxes and insurance have driven the cost of the PITI to $537. When both the library referendum and the Lake St. repaving bills come due, that amount will go up and the assessment of $15,600 plus interest will kick in for 15 years. Plus whatever rise in taxes inflation and paying for the war and whatever will be added over the next 15 years.
My neighborhood needed someone like me to buy this house, rather than an absentee landlord--not because such landlord would be a detriment, but having the owner live on site is an assistance to the police department and neighborhood in dealing with the detritus which inhabits Lake St.--drug dealers, prostitutes, drug and alcohol abusers, five finger discount customers for businesses, chop shoppers, serial killers (we had one in 94-95), etc.
When Lake St. is back together and operating well (this could take another 10 years or so), maybe it will be time to possibly knock down these 10 or so homes and build something else. (I wish them luck pulling this puppy down--it's built of concrete and the basement walls are 18" thick. If there is ever an earthquake of the magnitude of the 1806 San Francisco quake along this end of the New Madrid Fault Line, we are ready to withstand it!)
While I do not think the city owes it to me to build affordable housing, I do think they owe it to me to at least keep old housing affordable through the tax structure and assessment structure.
WizardMarks, Central ________________________________
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