Re “Affordable Housing”: The Birth of a Meme
Pine Tree Affordable Housing
$99,999.00
Consider Pine Tree Affordable Housing ( Fairfield, Connecticut) for your next home…
https://www.rent.com/connecticut/fairfield-apartments/pine-tree-affordable-housing-4-lnp001E000001Tp7xXIAR
There’s a word for those who can’t afford “affordable housing”:
homeless
But then, it’s their own damned fault, right?!
koshersalaami
11/06/2019 @ 10:28 pm
The issue here is that it’s purchase, not rent, when the kind of affordable housing that makes sense for people actually homeless is housing that can be rented. In terms of mortgages, it wouldn’t take an enormous amount of income to make payments on a mortgage under $100k. Affordable housing isn’t just about the homeless, it’s about people who work in basic services who can’t afford to live anywhere near their jobs. In that respect this absolutely qualifies as affordable housing, particularly in Connecticut. Rental prices are not included here if these units can be rented.
There is one reason a whole lot of areas will not get enough affordable housing, in spite of recent major investments in affordable housing by companies like Apple and Microsoft. In order to get housing close to where one works if they work somewhere with ridiculously expensive real estate like Silicon Valley, there needs to be enough space to build it. The only way to get enough units to really address the problem is to increase housing density, meaning building of more than two stories. The neighborhoods won’t allow it. This is not necessarily a NIMBY issue in terms of class; people there don’t want their neighborhoods to become more crowded and urban. Without that they will continue to have problems attracting enough labor because of how long their commutes would have to be. Supply and demand – without higher housing density supply will always be locally way too short.
Ron Powell
11/06/2019 @ 10:44 pm
“The issue here is that it’s purchase, not rent, when the kind of affordable housing that makes sense for people actually homeless is housing that can be rented.”
Agreed….However, when the term “affordable housing ” is systematically linked to the purchase of homes and only tangentially linked to the high density rental schemes that are required, re your assessment here, there remains a gap between what is needed and the plans or programs that should be in place to provide it…See my post on Affordability and Accessibility:
koshersalaami
11/08/2019 @ 12:14 am
But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with this affordable housing other than the fact that there can’t be enough of it. Though in Fairfield they might have enough space to build enough without going too far up.
JPH
11/13/2019 @ 1:17 am
…funny how the night moves…