*** As usual, questions below the fold. Keep reading! ***
According to Marin County, California, developers must include “affordable housing” in any development plan with two or more “market-rate” houses.
Residents of Strawberry, an affluent community in Marin County, oppose the requirement. Specifically, they oppose the local Habitat for Humanity’s (a “Christian” organization? Yeah, right…) efforts to build so-called low-income housing in their neighborhood. (Source)
[Clarification: Habitat for Humanity's work is admirable. Don't misunderstand me. The issue isn't what the charitable organziation does. It's the county's affordable housing requirement.]
Reasons cited: traffic congestion, parking issues, and concern about lowered property values. The unspoken reason is this one: We don’t want those people in the neighborhood.
If I lived in an affluent neighborhood, I’d feel the same way. This is an issue of class, not color.
Before I continue, let me say this up front and get it out of the way: I’m speaking in generalities. I recognize that there are exceptions to every rule, but the exception doesn’t disprove or negate the rule.
Generally speaking, people who work to save money to buy a house (and work hard to buy a nice house) appreciate it and the neighborhood in ways that people who don’t work to save money to buy a house don’t. It’s the difference between having a long-term outlook and a willingness to delay gratification, and an in-the-moment view of life and a focus on short-term pleasures. Saving money requires discipline and good financial planning. These qualities are correlated with other qualities you’d want in a neighbor.
There are certain people you just don’t want as neighbors, which is why you saved and worked hard to move to a decent neighborhood in the first place.
It has little to do with being a snob and a lot to do with building equity in property, raising children in a safe environment with decent schools, and overall, getting the kind of government services that justify your high property tax rates.
I don’t want to get bogged down with Marin County’s issues. It’s just a microcosm of what goes on daily all across the country. Let’s talk about the larger issue. According to liberal types, people have a right not just to housing, but affordable housing. Where did such a right come from?
Last year I wrote a post called “Bogus Rights,” borrowed from economist Walter Williams’s column of the same name, “Bogus Rights.” Williams distinguished actual rights, like the freedom of speech (which imposes no obligation on others) from so-called rights to medical care, food, and decent housing (which do impose obligations on others). He writes:
If it is said that a person has rights to medical care, food and housing, and has no means of paying, how does he enjoy them? There’s no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy who provides them. You say, “The Congress provides for those rights.” Not quite. Congress does not have any resources of its very own. The only way Congress can give one American something is to first, through the use of intimidation, threats and coercion, take it from another American. So-called rights to medical care, food and decent housing impose an obligation on some other American who, through the tax code, must be denied his right to his earnings. In other words, when Congress gives one American a right to something he didn’t earn, it takes away the right of another American to something he did earn.
So-called affordable housing, especially housing built in affluent neighborhoods, is more of the same government coercion. The same is happening in Fulton County, Georgia. The affluent residents want to secede from the rest for various reasons. The most important one is their lack of representation in the county government. They pay most of the taxes, but the government doesn’t serve their needs.
People moving into low-income housing in exclusive neighborhoods will not, cannot, pay comparable property taxes. They receive the benefit of a well-funded county government without having to pay into it themselves. They gain the benefit of a safe and clean neighborhood occupied by the kind of people who value safety and cleanliness, for example. Such qualities are filters that separate “good” neighbors from “bad.” Being able to buy a house in an affluent neighborhood at its market value filters out certain “bad neighbor” elements.
On the other hand, the housing debate is shifting toward “workforce” housing for civil servants who work in an affluent community but can’t afford to live there. Although “workforce” has a nicer ring to it than “low income,” the concept is still the same. Somebody has to take up the slack for families living in affluent neighborhoods in “affordable” houses. And those somebodies are taxpayers.
1) For readers who disagree with my assessment:
If you believe people have a right to food, medical care, and affordable housing, where does this right come from? If you cite a document or web site, please link to it.
2) For readers who agree with my assessment:
You’re brilliant! 
3) For everyone:
Is the married-with-children firefighter more worthy to live in an affluent neighborhood in a house subsidized by his well-to-do neighbors than the “single mom” raising fatherless children?
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Rights are either God given or are things that people have died for. They are bestowed (endowed) by our Creator or are secured through sacrifice. Anything else is just socialist poppycock.
Trey
I absolutely agree with you LaShawn. Now my family, as a one income family, is not in an upper-crust neighborhood, but we searched until we found a neighborhood that showed stewardship. We saved for nearly 14 years before we bought our first home. We really count on being in a safe neighborhood where others have the same determination in ownership that we have.
As to the firefighter having his subsidized home vs. a single mom, its a no brainer. The firefighter is an asset to the community and without subsidies cannot live in expensive neighborhoods, even though he is needed. Education, skills, and money often grant us allowances that others may covet, but the truth is this is the way it is.
I have great sympathy for the single mom, yet unless she is the firefighter, I don’t see her getting the subsidies.
“If you believe people have a right to food, medical care, and affordable housing, where does this right come from? If you cite a document or web site, please link to it.” (LaShawn)
It can only come from a confirmed belief in the righteousness of chattel slavery, for if those commodities (housing, food and health care are ALL mere commodities produced by other human beings) are to be given out free, then the only way they can be provided for “free” is by government forcing the providers/producers to either (A) sell the fruits of their labor for below market value or (B) work for the government, for an arbitrarily assigned salary, to produce those things for “free.”
None of us has a right to more commodities than our own labors produce enough compensation to purchase.
When the government subsidizes commodities like food and housing for “the poor,” the cost of those subsidies are passed onto us all as both taxpayers (taxes rise) and consumers (prices increase) to pay for all that “free stuff.”
We all pay more for things because of such subsidies. In a sense, such policies make veritable slaves/indentured servants of the producers (from workers to business owners), while it rewards indolence, incompetancy and sloth (a/k/a “poverty”). In that regard it creates an extremely dysgenic system, by in effect, punishing productivity and rewarding dysfunction.
Re. housing subsidies for police and firefighters; The residents/taxpayers should know that such subsidies are ultimately as expensive as raising the salaries of such workers so that they could afford to live in those areas.
There’s no way for government to magically make the rules of economics disappear. The cost of any given item is its cost. Government doesn’t “produce” anything, so it can only give to one what it’s taken from another.
Ultimately such subsidies are bad for two reasons, (1) they mask the real costs incurred and (2) they inculcate some working people (in this example firefighters) into accepting the view that they are “entitled” to such subsidies.
La Shawn, such infringements upon the free market are in place here in Chapel Hill. It seems like extortion to me. Sometimes I think the real reason behind it is the desire of the liberals who run these communities to stick to the so called rich. It makes them feel good and lessens their guilt. John Edwards, anyone?????
My objection is to income level exclusivity. Some people seem to believe that those with less income than them are not worthy to be their neighbors let alone walk past their houses (in the case of gated communities). It is a short step to equating a person’s worth as a human being to how much money they have.
No, I’m not a socialist, I’m a Christian.
>>It is a short step to equating a person’s worth as a human being to how much money they have.>>
A common failing, don’t you think? but one which should be addressed by the ideals of religion, not the enforcement of the law.
Market forces and equal opportunity should guide the housing market, not some pie-in-the-sky “equal outcome” program designed by touchy-feely Marin County social engineers with more time than sense on their hands.
Even if I wanted to live in the lakefront country club horsey-set estate community that’s not far from me, I coudn’t afford it. But I don’t have a right to a house of a designated size in a designated neighborhood any more than I have a right to be happy. I either need to enjoy what I can afford or figure out how to earn more dough.
Something is not “right” with this story. If most of the houses are near $1mm, then the land they are on has to be worth a small fortune as well, more than the average firefighter can afford to build a house on and surely more than Habitat for Humanity can afford. Somebody’s pockets are being greased.
On the other side of the coin, my next door neighbor complained to everybody in the neighborhood and city hall when I built my 2200 sq ft house 160 feet away from his 4,000 sq ft house even though I had owned the land for over 10 years before his house was ever built and even though the city requirements are only 1200 sq ft house minimums. I told him to go fly a kite (so to speak).
The bottom line is the city code and the city code is written by the city Planning Commission. Any change to such a code requires a Public Hearing and that’s the time to get thy butt down to City Hall and voice objections. If John Q Public, rich or poor, doesn’t exercise that right, it’s too late after the fact.
You know I think that anyone who gets up every day and goes to work, even if it’s a low paying job, such as the person you go to for your hair cuts or the checker at Seven & Eleven, who make our lives much more comfortable, are deserving of our respect. What about the multibillion dollar company’s that just can’t find the resources to pay the employees a living wage. You know the kind of company’s I’m talking about, you’ve seen them in the news, the ones with CEO’s who are cheating stockholders and employees alike while living a life style that could only be described as decadent. And as for that single mom raising fatherless children, maybe her husband died while saving somebody’s life in one of those affluent neighborhoods you’re talking about, or maybe that single mom is raising fatherless children because her deadbeat husband died in Iraq, while serving his country. You should check out what a widow gets from our government and you’ll understand instantly why she took a low end job cutting your hair. Don’t be so quick to judge it’s just possible that your opinion is not all that brilliant. By the way, I do agree with you about not forcible putting “affordable†housing in with “affluent†housing. DJ
My assumption is that Marin County does have essential personnel like police and firefighters and have civil servants and teachers, right?
Where are they living now?
If I was one of those persons and I couldn’t afford to live where I worked, I guess I would have to move. But at some point what happens when it gets to the point where you can’t hire those essential type personnel anymore because it is not economically feasible for those folks to come to work for your county? Surely the rich residents of the county aren’t going to ‘dirty’ their hands policing and firefighting are they?
Why is HfH so determined to move the housing in that area? The article says they had to shut down a branch there back in 1990s because Marin County didn’t want it. So what’s the benefit of having it there? I don’t get the point of putting “low income” housing in an area where it can only damage the property values.
HfH also makes the ridiculous assumption that income and values never coincide. I don’t know where they’ve been, but I’ve seen for myself what happens when people with lower class values move into a previously middle class area. The lawns don’t get maintained, litter, graffiti, noise pollution. And people start to worry when they see cop cars constantly visiting certain houses. No one works hard to get into a neighborhood with such features, and no one likes seeing all their hard work going down the drain when their neighborhood gets people who turn it into a place like that, either. Are they obliged to like it? Whose feelings are to be considered, and how was that determination made?
Also, if the middle or upper class “flees” from the area, are they still wrong? Why should they want to stay? What’s in it for them to have such neighbors?
City-Journal has a story about how Charlotte revolutionized public housing. Why can’t HfH pick a neighborhood with such housing and try out that same technique? http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_2_how_charlotte.html. The article says that originally, public housing indulged in the magical thinking that putting the poor and dysfunctional in with the middle class would somehow make them change their values to become more middle class. They thought the dysfunctional behavior would magically disappear. It didn’t. Instead the dysfunctional behavior continued and lowered property/quality of life values for everyone else. Charlotte knew they had to separate the poor who are trying to better themselves from the dysfunctional poor if anything was to change. HfH can try the same thing right where these public/low-income houses already are.
“My objection is to income level exclusivity. Some people seem to believe that those with less income than them are not worthy to be their neighbors” (Mark)
Money buys THINGS Mark, but money, in and of itself, is not a person’s worth.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with some skills being valued higher than others, nor with some people profiting by creating more value than others.
There are those who’d seek to cap any individual’s personal wealth at $1 million. If that’s the case, then Gates’ Microsoft should’ve only been able to produce perhaps $25 million in value, rather than the billions it has, or Steven King should’ve only sold whatever number of copies of his books that earned him that amount – tough luck for all those others who’d like to read those stories and freely trade some of their money for one of his books.
I live in NY (Staten Island), I couldn;t afford to live in Manhattan where the cheapest Co-Ops now fetch over $1 million.
Moreover, there is often a great discrepancy between the lifestyles of working people who earn close to the same amount of money and most of that difference is due to fiscal discipline. Why should a more profligatge person earning, say $60K/year get a housing stipend, when a more fiscally disciplined person who sacrificed and delayed gratification, earning the same amount gets none, because that person already has a home?
I don’t begrudge wealthy people who have more than I do. I thought Christians weren’t supposed to covet.
“If I was one of those persons and I couldn’t afford to live where I worked, I guess I would have to move. But at some point what happens when it gets to the point where you can’t hire those essential type personnel anymore because it is not economically feasible for those folks to come to work for your county?” (Tiffany)
That’s very nearly the case here in New York.
Few, if any cops and firefighters can afford to live in Manhattan, so most live either in the “outer boroughs” (Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn) or the surrounding counties (Nassau & Suffolk on Long Island, or Westchester, Putnam and Orange in Upstate NY) and commute to work.
I’ve been a fireman in NYC for over twenty years and I don’t know what they’d have to pay me, in order for me to be able to live in Manhattan (No thanks, I wouldn’t want to live there any way), but it would certainly be far more than a firefighter’s value is on the open market.
The cost of housing is an issue for just about everyone, but the answer isn’t government intervention to artificially lower a market-based cost.
One question I never see addressed in the affordable housing question, is what happens when the house is resold by the lower-income person? Are they required to sell it at the low value, which seems against their capital rights to dispose of their property at a price they wish? Yet, if they can sell it at the market value of the surrounding homes, they’ve received a gain by being the lucky one to grab that particular low income house.
Also, I used to be in favor of low income housing until we had a situation here in Albuquerque where a judge making $90,000+ was discovered to have been given a rent-free low income house. When the newspaper made it front page news, she was forced out and paid $4,000 back rent for two years use (how long she was in the house.) However, no one was held accountable for giving this house away and she thought there was nothing wrong. All I could think about was how for two years some low-income family had been cheated out of a house that should have been theirs–and the attitude was, oh well, we made a mistake.
Louise B
“There are those who’d seek to cap any individual’s personal wealth at $1 million.”
Who has ever proposed this?
Comment by tvd — 01.29.07 @ 2:15 pm
“There are those who’d seek to cap any individual’s personal wealth at $1 million.â€
Who has ever proposed this?
——————————————-
Certainly not Ted Kennedy. God forbid any laws that might affect the collection of Kennedy trust funds.
There are several reasons why there is a dearth of “affordable” housing, especially in the Bay Area. One is zoning restrictions and “open space” requirements which drive the cost of land up.
Another is we seem to require more and more square footage to house fewer people. The suburban housing development I grew up in (built in 1954) has no side yards and the average square footage was about 1200 sq. feet. My parents raised six kids in that house. My house, built in 1967, is a bit bigger (about 1500 sq. feet), but has yard all the way around. Hubs and I are raising four kids in it. I know families with 2500 sq. feet of housing (built in the 1990’s or later) and only two kids–about twice the size of the house I grew up in.
Why do we need twice the space to raise smaller families?
“Certainly not Ted Kennedy. God forbid any laws that might affect the collection of Kennedy trust funds.”
So, no one, then.
I see.
I’ve always thought that we as Christians should be of the mindset that we have no rights.
We do what IS right.
Walter Williams conveniently forgets that people had to fight and die for the rights of free speech and etc., that was a pretty big obligation there.
We’re fighting again to bring those rights to other people, namely in Iraq. We are spilling blood for others to have those rights. In that sense, its the right thing to do.
I do not agree there is a right to affordable housing, this is an individual community issue.
I do think it IS right to provide affordable housing, but it is not A right, and our decrepit and diabolic govt sure shouldnt provide it.
Thought this was interesting in light, of the current discussion:
link
Well, IMHO, niether the firefighter nor the single mom should receive subsidies since in both cases the sibsidies are not earned nor are they agreed upon by the taxpayer. One can make the argument that the firefighter provides a more valuable service to the community than the single mom who doesn’t work or works at a low skilled job though, which is a given. I would say if the firefighter is compensated this way for his service and his neighbors(taxpayers) agrees to that compensation prior to employment, then so be it. The problem is when the single mom is compensated this way without the consent of those who have to subsidize it.
It is dangerous to continue to make this issue about class or race or any such concocted rationale. The bottom line is that life isn’t fair. It is what it is, period. You have to do one of three things to get what you want and need out of life, beg, steal, or work. Two of these will only get you so far and will ultimately destroy you.
I choose to work myself, it would be nice if more people chose to work also.
I too agree with LaShawn’s assessment, I don’t have a right to “affordable housing” because I am an American, working class or otherwise.
Is the married-with-children firefighter more worthy to live in an affluent neighborhood in a house subsidized by his well-to-do neighbors than the “single mom†raising fatherless children?
In my opinion, NO. What the firefighter is “more worthy” because we should assume the firefighter is an asset and the single mom would be a drain to the community?
For anyone to think that because you work in a town means you have live in that town is just stupid. You want to live somewhere “exclusive”, then you have to be able to afford it. It really has nothing to do with anything other than money. Plenty of trashy, low class people live in “exclusive” high priced neighborhoods. As far as I am concerned, if you have the money you can live where ever you want. That is not a hard concept. What happens in places that extort a few mandatory “cheaper” homes from developers is that the prices of the higher priced homes go down or the prices of the cheaper homes go up and then they are no longer so called affordable.
I just graduated with my teaching degree in December. I am not looking for a teaching position in the city where I currently live. One of the reasons is that I KNOW I wouldn’t be able to afford to by myself a house in a part of town I am willing to live in. Prices are higher around here because it’s a popular place to live, and housing isn’t cheap, even in the “bad neighorhoods”. I’m looking at smaller communities with more affordable housing. Yes, it will be a pain to relocate, but I want to be a homeowner again, and I know I can’t do that here.
Interesting – Then I wonder then, how do these communities get teachers and other personnel to work there in the first place?
“There are those who’d seek to cap any individual’s personal wealth at $1 million.â€
Who has ever proposed this?” (tvd)
Virtually every Socialist believes in capping personal wealth. $1 million, or $10 billion, the amount is inconsequential becaue the concept itself is terrible.
“Virtually every Socialist believes in capping personal wealth. $1 million, or $10 billion, the amount is inconsequential becaue the concept itself is terrible.”
Who has ever proposed a cap on personal wealth? When has this ever been put forth in America? If there are those who would do it, surely you shouldn’t have a problem finding a source…
#25-Tiffany, The teachers commute from where they live just the same as the homeowners in the expensive communities commute to their jobs.
I commuted 75 miles one way to work for 3 1/2 years and was making $16,000 per year. 38250 miles per year just to get to work and back (51 weeks x 5 days per week x 150 miles per day) Don’t ask about vacation, sick or holidays. One day my boss kept calling other offices around town and could not figure out why no one was answering, I told him it was the 4th of July. Really!
He was also the best boss that I ever had. Really!
tvd–the socialist Peter Singer has proposed that no American household be allowed to keep more than $30,000 of their income; the rest should be donated to the poor in the developing world. Here’s a link.
So yes, people really are suggesting that there be caps on how much Americans can be allowed to improve their lives.
“the socialist Peter Singer has proposed that no American household be allowed to keep more than $30,000 of their income; the rest should be donated to the poor in the developing world.”
How interesting. I see that one person has proposed it.
However, Singer’s a provocateur–do you really think this rises to the level of one who “seeks” to cap others’ income at $30,000, or is he merely proposing?
The real argument to be made is that true socialists want to take money from those who earned it and give it to those who have not earned it. The richer a person is, the bigger the piggybank the lefties see. This is nothing more than legalized theft, when stripped of its slick marketing veneer.
Andrew Carnegie believed that no man should die rich, so he gave away his fortune. Admirable. BUT… that was his choice over his own money, not government confiscation. In any discussion of rights, the preservation of the right to hold one’s own property and do with it as one sees fit needs to be affirmed.
Recently, it was noted in Austin that only the wealthy could afford to buy a condo downtown (The average cost is hovering around $512,000.) Ergo, our city council, after a great deal of lamentation over the “unfairness of it all” is exploring Austin’s affordable housing bond and tax rebates and incentives to developers, so that families of four making under $40,000 (may be raised to $57,000) can afford a condo. Naturally,they will have to be subsidized in perpetuity as the property taxes on a fair market price would start at around $15,000/a year.
The idiocy of this becomes apparent when one recognizes that a family making $100,000 could never afford such a condo either, but will be forced to subsidize others.
Are we nuts?
Has anyone ever noticed the irony in the reality that the “most compassionate” cities are the ones that only the wealthy can afford. For all of their much vaunted “love for the little guy” the policies which are embraced in liberal urban areas are actually geared towards protecting the property values of the rich and pampering their playgrounds.
Think about it…No day labor centers, section 8 housing, or halfway rehabs in their neighborhoods. No siree!
In Baltimore, they razed an unsigtly towering public-housing project and constructed a “mixed income” townhouse community in its place. Ideally, it would house low-income residents (presumably under the Section 8 program) and middle-class working residents who paid market rate for their homes.
Um…no. Yes, there are low-income residents, but I would guess the number of middle-class working residents is 5% or less. Why? Drive up MLK Jr. Blvd and see for yourself. On a good day it looks like an Army barracks, on a bad day, a concentration camp. The homes are bleak and cheerless, arranged in barracks-like rows that look horrible from all sides. The ‘project’ is also fronted by an oversized vacant lot. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
On the flip side, Habitat for Humanity is doing some wonderful things here, for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford to own a home. AND….most importantly…they’re taking otherwise vacant/nuisance properties out of the hands of non-resident slumlords and putting them back on the tax rolls.
Bravo!
If teachers and fireman etc. cannot afford to live in an area, two scenarios come to mind. 1) They can commute just like millions of other Americans who buy homes that they can actually afford with their own money, rather than the extorted funds of others 2) They can refuse to work in an area that is too expensive, thus creating a scarcity of their services, and thus driving up the salary that is necessary to offer to attract them.
Forcing taxpayers to subsidize an arbitrary list of workers and/or those who cannot afford the housing so that they can live in homes that are in expensive areas is wrong on so many levels.
Jan~
You’re in Austin? Shoot me an email!
Theodore Dalyrimple had a great piece:
an excerpt:
The little gardens in front of the publicly owned apartments are overgrown and jungle-like; they look as if no one really cared for them since the construction of the housing. Litter and household detritus—from diapers to the packaging of fast-food meals—covers them, some of it festooned on the overgrown bushes. At a certain point, private property takes over. The little gardens are cared for and neat; not a single piece of litter clutters them…. Taxpayers are making an involuntary gift, extracted from them by legal force, year after year, and no doubt decade after decade, to people who probably despise them for it.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2006-08-10td.html
In Baltimore, they razed an unsigtly towering public-housing project and constructed a “mixed income†townhouse community in its place. Ideally, it would house low-income residents (presumably under the Section 8 program) and middle-class working residents who paid market rate for their homes.
I thought most of those homes are section 8 even though the original design is as you state. Columbia would be a better example.
This does give the impression that a person’s value is based on the amount of income or net worth of the person.
If things are still the way it was when I left Montgomery County, teachers and emergency workers not being able to afford housing in the county is a serious problem.
1) They can commute just like millions of other Americans who buy homes that they can actually afford with their own money
Like the millions of people who buy homes with FHA loans.
2) They can refuse to work in an area that is too expensive, thus creating a scarcity of their services, and thus driving up the salary that is necessary to offer to attract them.
Which means higher taxes which people in the same jurisdictions complain about.
I live in Santa Clara and am a bleeding heart in some ways that people mistake me for being Liberal quite often. I go into prison sharing the Gospel of Jesus and refuse to see the kidlets in there as only criminals, something that got me kicked off a jury panel. I also have a hard time NOT supporting Affirmative Action. And my own mother used to have a Section 8 tenant in one side of her duplex. I support low income housing. But not in high market neighboorhoods!
Why? I’ll tell you why. In the Bay Area, every place they have put up projects has increased in crime. The pockets of crime follow the disadvantaged unforunately.
Marin are a bunch of latte-drinking rich folks for the most park. This is not a color issue for me, as the only person I know that lives up there personally is an African-American man.
No, I wonder why in the blazes they want to put a lower-income family there? What jobs are around for them? It is not like Marin has a plethora of jobs, like Silicon Valley, San Francisco or Oakland (which is really starting to change from years ago). No, it is really a place people commute to and from.
Now let’s say it REALLY is for teachers, firefighters, police etc who all WORK in Marin County and would not even have to commute. Would peole be meticulous in making sure that these people qualified…where really teacher, firefighters, police etc? And what about the nail lady…or the barber down the street? Would they qualify?
You see the point I am getting at?
I live in a condo that allows units to be rented out. The renters are many times obvious, they are 9 out of 10 times the source of the security or police being called here. The HOA is changing the laws in the rule book here to only allow a very small minimum of these condos to be allowed renters.
I am afraid that “renter” mentality (not speaking about ALL renters, for pete’s sake I was one for many years myself!) will destroy beautiful Marin County.
Also, why is nobody discussing the fact Sausailto (Southern Marin County) is on a earthquke fault and full of landfill…making it prone to earthquake damagae AND landslides!
Source: http://www.ci.sausalito.ca.us/business/cdd/generalplan/health-safe.htm
Mercy me!
Like the millions of people who buy homes with FHA loans. – Dark Star
no…Like the millions of folks who have bought homes though the private sector. At the end of the day, there is no such thing as free. Any unearned money we give to someone is money forcibly taken from another who earned it.
Which means higher taxes which people in the same jurisdictions complain about… – Dark Star
Paying higher salaries to attract critically needed workers to an area when those workers are scarce is much more palatable to taxpayers than subsidizing an arbitrarily picked group of workers. Lots of folks would enjoy living in a desirable area and think that their work contributes a lot. After all, where would we be without the garbage man?
We just don’t want the “elite” dictating the value of a person’s work to us.
If certain professions are truly scarce, their monetary worth goes up and if they are not, then it does not make sense to force taxpayers to pay them more than their market value dictates.
That’s why neurosurgeons can command higher salaries than store clerks and it has nothing to do with the innate worth of a human being but is more a reflection of the value of the unique skills they offer society. Attempts to circumvent this dynamic wreak havoc ultimately, however “good” such intervention sounds.
Trey says “Rights are either God given or are things that people have died for. They are bestowed (endowed) by our Creator or are secured through sacrifice. Anything else is just socialist poppycock.”
I’m sorry to disagree, there are NO “God given” rights. Men declared “God given rights”, but no where in the bible are they ever mentioned.
no…Like the millions of folks who have bought homes though the private sector. At the end of the day, there is no such thing as free. Any unearned money we give to someone is money forcibly taken from another who earned it.
Like the FHA loans which many people don’t complain about but will complain about things like affordable housing for teachers, policemen, firemen, etc.
If certain professions are truly scarce, their monetary worth goes up and if they are not, then it does not make sense to force taxpayers to pay them more than their market value dictates.
That doesn’t work with the government model. In fact, the low pay of police, firemen, and teachers is a prime example.
Additionally, even though software engineers are in need, and they are available, major parts of the private sector are outsourcing to other countries to reduce cost. The economic model you are referencing is in need of some tweeks.
Oh Lord, are people in this country just getting lazy? Can someone PLEASE explain, what is the hardship about driving? Honestly, what is the ordeal? I live in the state with the Motor City, so I’m used to cars, and driving them. Are the folks complaining about people needing to commute just one of those who never had to drive except on rare occasions? What’s the source of the phobia here? Does the phrase “bedroom community” not ring a bell at all? People commute. I commute; most people I know commute. Most of my college classmates were commuting to school, some from–gasp–other counties. Or, another country even. This just isn’t unusual.
What does it matter if people have to commute? I had a first grade teacher who commuted from another state (which was actually about 35 miles away). I have Canadian coworkers who commute straight from Canada everyday. They don’t whine, and they actually need passports to get to work. Heck, they come here to shop for food, too. So not everyone can afford to live in certain places. And? People are obliged to care because? Let them get jobs and save money. It’s not that challenging.
My younger son just bought a house. He scraped and saved for a downpayment while working his way into a better job, then closed on a small tract house in a little cookie-cutter development, something that he could afford. It’s not precisely what he wants, nor is it in the location he wants, but he’s building equity, and in a few years he will sell and move to something better. Gee, it’s almost like he takes personal responsibility for making his life better. What a concept!
I agree for the most part. In Colorado though, we do have an exception. The expensive, exclusive, isolated mountain towns like Vail and Aspen need everyday people to run business and services but their property values are overinflated because of celebrities and other rich people that want their own piece of the mountains. The regular folks have to commute for hours through mountain passes to get to work. It’s a physical barrier that metros areas don’t have. This has created a labor shortage for these towns. Not matter how hard you work or save, there’s no way most people could afford a multi-million dollar property to live there so these towns have been building “affordable” housing.
I guess the natural solution is that these towns would go under for lack of services and the rich people would pull out, but they won’t allow that of course.
I have lived in a good variety of places during my life, in the country, in ‘nice’ suburbs, in places that were a step away (literally and figuratively) from slums, in quaint little villages in Europe. All the complaints about less affluent people are somewhat true. Many of the less affluent people are that way because they have some socialization problems that make them sub-optimal neighbors. I understand and empathize with people who don’t want to live next door to someone with such problems. I prefer not to. One can even make pretty good safety arguments. However, I am pretty sure that there is no right (God-given or Constitutional) not to have an a$$-hole for a neighbor. Maybe part of the right to pursue happiness, but I think that that’s a stretch. I have seen one thing in my travels though, something few have commented on. There is a distinct qualitative difference between smaller slums and bigger city-sized slums. Young people growing up in smaller slums have a chance of success in life not much different from middle class children (success defined as a honest, productive live, not rich). Children growing up in large slums have significantly lower chances of success in life. While a child growing up with just a single mother in a small unpleasant house is at a disadvantage, and one finds that more in ‘disadvantaged’ neighborhoods, the atmosphere is decidedly different if that neighborhood is large. Children see too few adults who have ‘made it’ and too many of those who have, are criminals. Children grow up with too many peers who have given up, and pour out tremendous peer pressure to those who have not. Children growing up in poor neighborhoods not big enough to encompass a full school district do see and meet successful adults. They go to school with students who believe that they will be successful. Kids can be cruel and even in Roman times schools had bullies. But the difference is the pervasiveness of the culture of failure. I believe that this pervasive culture of failure is the basis of many, perhaps the majority of problems facing urban blacks today.
The system of property rights and real estate that we have in the United States feeds these large urban slums. Today they are becoming sub-urban slums as Liberty City in Miami migrates to south to Homestead. Liberty City was relatively small and I know a lot of people who have escaped. Unfortunately the slums in south Dade county are big, and the problems bigger.
I am a card carrying Republican (actually, I don’t have a card), and I believe strongly in the American Dream. I don’t know what the answer to this problem is, but these big slums are bad, and our society has an interest in controlling their growth. Grouping of housing by income is a problem in our society. I wish there was more discussion of this problem and less of affirmative action.
Darkstar, this article in the NY Times gives more details, but apparently 100 of the homes were to be sold at market rate.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9406E4DD1F3BF93AA25750C0A9669C8B63
According to the article, 303 row houses were built at a cost of $60,000,000 which amounts to $200,000 per unit. Are we nuts?
There was some brief uncertainty here in Oklahoma City a few years back, when two lots in Heritage Hills East, adjacent to one of the tonier historic districts in town, were donated to Habitat for Humanity. The world, I am pleased to report, did not come to an end: Habitat spent a few extra dollars to replicate the architectural styles that prevailed in that neighborhood, and two families got to move into a place they probably couldn’t have hoped for otherwise. (And things will, I believe, continue to go well: the amount of sweat equity Habitat requires from its buyers generally excludes the sort of layabouts people are afraid to have around, and their local loan-default rate is in the two-percent range.)
EXCELLENT POST!
I agree with Jennifer:
As to the firefighter having his subsidized home vs. a single mom, its a no brainer. The firefighter is an asset to the community and without subsidies cannot live in expensive neighborhoods, even though he is needed. Education, skills, and money often grant us allowances that others may covet, but the truth is this is the way it is.
In otherwords he EARNED it.
Kathy,
Do you think that teachers are an asset to a community? What about nurses? How about car mechanics? What about the garbage men?
Once you open the door to subsidizing the homes of those one deems to be “an asset”, you cannot close that door again. You can bet that arbitrary decisions will be made and there will be differences of opinion. Naturally, it will become enormously expensive. At the end of the day, it is more practical to simply pay folks what they are worth.
Suppose we decided to start subsidizing fireman who are married to doctor’s, for example. Are we then going to subsidize wealthy families? If not, are we going to give some fireman a home and not give other fireman a home, thus making their pay disparate for the same work?
If we really need fireman and we simply do not have enough of them, their salaries should go up because they will have to be paid enough to get them to work in an area.
If you want to live in a “nice” neighborhood, you have to be willing to work to achieve that! I have often worked 2 or more jobs (especially when I lived in completely unaffordable Southern California). I grew up in upper middle class surroundings and was educated at relatively exclusive schools until I rebelled and insisted going to a very large state university.
When life in California became impossible to afford (in my view) I moved to Ohio where the salaries are certainly lower but I can work one job and live comfortably on that lower salary.
What I’m driving at is that we all make choices. If living near the beach is all important to me, then I need to be willing to make whatever efforts are necessary to achieve the finances to do that. If having time with my friends and family is what matters to me, then I choose to work 1 job and live on that income.
So many people I have seen who are unable to find an above-average paying position are unwilling to do the hard work necessary to qualify themselves for that better job. I work in law firms and there are frequently people applying for jobs as secretaries in the firm who know that legal secretaries are exceptionally well paid. Of course these people have not polished their computer or typing skills to the level required to earn that higher pay, they haven’t learned the court system in depth, they aren’t able to spell or punctuate or even speak the English language coherently (frequently DESPITE being born here) and without expletives. But they think life is unfair because they cannot get or keep these higher paying jobs. No – not true.
In a society that is visibly populated by “I want what I want when I want it” types, it’s difficult to preach patience and diligence to young people, by these are virtues they really need to have so that they can legitimately afford to live in Marin County – around the most boring humans on Planet Earth!
La Shawn,
I’m sure you’ve come across the Mt. Laurel cases during law school. Affordable housing “set-asides” originated in NJ as a result of the Mt. Laurel decisions.
check out this site:
http://www.state.nj.us/dca/coah
The issue of affordable housing is more than having “those people” (e.g. the bastard-spawning-Shaquandas which you allude to) live in affluent communities. It’s part of sound planning practices that link employment centers to residential areas. More and more professionals are being relegated to the “those people” category due to the simple fact that they (myself included!) cannot afford to live in most parts of the country.
Just curious, are you against the FHA/GI loans issued to military families?
Government regulation and human nature should clear up your mistaken impression of my view of “affordable housing.” – Admin
Here’s my take:
1. “Affordable” subsidized housing is an inefficient way of providing welfare to the recipients. In the case of the firefighter, the police officer or the cleaners that are hired by householders in wealthy areas, you’ll need to offer a large enough wage to persuade these people to commute in from wherever they can afford to live. If you don’t offer enough, you won’t get decent workers. That’s the market in action.
2. I have nothing but contempt for the sort of person who doesn’t want a poorer family moving next door because they drive an older car or whatever, and that will “lower the tone” of the neighborhood.
2b. This isn’t the same as the legitimate concern as to whether the new neighbours will be quiet, tidy and honest. I agree that there tends to be a correlation between people who will make desirable neighbors and people who have saved to be able to afford their home, and agree that it may be hard to tell the differene between 2 and 2b in practice.
3. There is nothing to stop a group of local residents building a house to rent at a subsidised rent to a desirable worker, or to sell to such a worker at a reduced rate, with some restrictve covenants applied, or to engage in some kind of shared housing scheme with the desirable but low-paid worker. In the case of places like Aspen, this is obviously the way to attract employees who wouldn’t otherwise be able to come, and it appears to be exactly what the town has done.
When this is done on a voluntary basis by local people, I’m absolutely fine with it (obviously). When it’s done by local government, I might just about support it in the case of somewhere like Aspen, but not otherwise (and I would far rather a voluntary association of Aspen businesses did it). It’s certainly not the kind of meddling that counties or states should even think about attempting.
First we pass a laws that force up the cost of houses. Then we feel guilty and subsidize one of the houses at a rate that probably matches what it should have cost anyhow you get a free ego boo.
Based on my scientific guess that apartments in Houston seem to cost the same as subsidized apartments in San Jose and it least to me it seems Houston is at least as crowded.
Then of course we say dangerous poor people who can only afford housing that middle class people can afford else where oughtnt be let to move in.
OK by me but i think thats a side issue.
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