Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Cities such as Toronto, New York, Chicago, Tampa, etc. have been developing mixed income residences (such as condos) in recent years.
The goal is reduce the crime, gang activity, and other negative outcomes typically associated with project housing. Mixed income housing is said to enable low income people the opportunity to live in a safe, clean, and positive environment that they otherwise wouldn't have.
By mixing in the wealthy (some areas are starting to include middle wage earners) the HOAs and taxes help keep the area thriving with restaurants, nice amenities, and positive foot traffic.
So what are your thoughts of this arrangement?
By the way, I have no problems with many people who live in project housing. Most are appreciative of a home. However, there can be some bad apples mostly due to lots of free time (unemployment) and low levels of values in keeping the property nice as no money was invested in it.
How does it affect re-sale value?
What are the incentives for the wealthy to live in mixed income housing?
Just some of my thoughts. Just an interesting concept I have a lot of questions about.
I don't care about living in economically mixed areas. I care about HOA fees. I guaran-damn-tee you that the HOA fees alone would make it economically unfeasible for anyone TRULY poor to live there- and would even price most middle-class wage earners out.
HOAs are hugely risky, and not just economically. There is virtually no oversight over them. They are free to muck about with your money however they please. They can change the entire structure of the HOA without input from you, they can change HOA rules at the drop of a hat and you have to comply or sell up and move. A HOA could go bankrupt and then you're stuck with the mess. They are pretty routinely used to funnel business to relatives or friends of board members. People steal money and disappear with it.
It strikes me as a token gesture/publicity grab more than anything else. Progressive politicians looking for votes.
The number of low incomers who'd benefit from such a thing is a drop in the bucket - it's crazy to think this could be transformative. And it's nothing new, this has been kicked around and preached about for decades. Section 8 has been mentioned.
Tampering with supply/demand is a bad idea, and for what? To prove that a mixed income population can merely co-exist without animosity/possible violence? It'd be naïve to expect any more than that.
Now low income does not have to mean ghetto. developers in Philly are required to designate some % of their units for what they call "affordable housing". If you are a small real estate investor it can bring tax advantages to having a % of your units as "affordable, low income".
Last I heard about that law in Philly was when John Street was mayor and it didn't pass. What mayor got it passed?
Last edited by 2002 Subaru; 11-19-2017 at 10:45 PM..
What you are not taking into consideration, there are a lot of people, that do not have the intelligence to work at a job today, that gives them an income large enough to live without some help. People that are very much needed to work in things like restaurants of all types, clean motels, landscape work, and other service jobs. The middle class and high income people, need services that these people provide, and they are working at jobs they are capable of performing. Move all these people out of a city, and the middle class and upper class, will not be able to survive without the services those people provide. This group of people are a vital part of the local employment picture, and they do not have the ability to upgrade their employment, as there are people capable of handling those jobs, and employers cannot afford to move the ones doing the lowest level of work up which would require constant training to fulfill the better jobs. You can't expect a hotel maid, to turn into a computer engineer as an example.
Fact: There are not enough better paid jobs in the whole country, to be able to move all those low income people getting some help into better paid jobs. Look at the threads on City-Data that people with a college education, are having trouble finding jobs. Run an ad for 3 employees in the better job category, and you may get 500 applications.
If you think I am wrong, then tell us where those jobs are going to come from to move all those in the lower employment field to middle class jobs.
And tell us, how are the cities going to survive, without people to work in restaurants especially in fast food restaurants, do the janitorial work, clean motel rooms, and to fill all those other low paid jobs in the service sector. The cities cannot afford to lose all these workers.
I have hired hundreds of people in my corporate days, and in businesses I owned or was managing, and know what is possible and what is not possible. I have had a lot of those low income workers apply for better jobs, and their applications would be rejected just from the form they filled out. It would be obvious that it was a person that could not fulfill the job requirements on the majority of applications.
Did you read my entire post?
I stated my mother worked as a waitress her entire life and never once took any type of public aid and raised 2 kids by herself! To this day she is in her late 60’s working as a waitress making $50k a year!
Where are the jobs? Well that depends on where you live. We are in the Chicagoland area and there are plenty of jobs here, both low and high wages!! If you need a job, sometimes you have to move to get one! I’m not opposed to public housing but I don’t want a section 8 renter in the house next to mine if I’m paying $2k for a mortgage. I also stated there should be a time limit on public assistance. No one should be on it their entire life! That just screams lazy! I came from poverty and made something out of myself with no help. There’s really no excuse for laziness!!
Why is almost everyone on this thread assuming that mixed income housing means that rich/wealthy people are living with poor people?
I'm not an expert on mixed income housing, however, I have lived in towns/cities that had mixed buildings and developments and I'm familiar with several of them both in the US and outside of it. I've never seen any that tried to cater to "rich" or "wealthy" people. The non-subsidized people were working people like young professionals early in their careers, newly divorced people, retirees downsizing, and people with decent but not high paying jobs across the spectrum, etc. There were no "rich people" among them. In these areas, real estate is very expensive and much of the new developments were mixed income to some degree as it was required for approval. Nobody really gave the mixed income aspect much notice.
Anyway, young professionals and others with decent but modest earnings in high cost areas often struggle to afford their first homes so they move to poorer neighborhoods (i.e. gentrification). The idea of modest/middle income working people living alongside poorer people is hardly a new one.
By the way, the lower income people who were subsidized were not "gang bangers", they were mainly single mothers, low income elderly people, and independently living disabled people. These developments were new, somewhat stylish in design and fairly well built but not luxury by any measure.
The bolded is a good question.
My bf and I moved to a very expensive city last year. We were looking at apartments and one place we looked at explained that because my bf had taken some time off before we moved that his income that year was low enough to qualify him for some type of low income rental assistance. The rent was $1500/mo for a very small, old (70s style) one bedroom apartment. I don't know how anyone who was actually long term, low income could afford that. No one who lived in that building was wealthy so it's not really the same thing but in many parts of the country what is considered "affordable" housing is not really accessible to the truly poor. $1500 is about 1/2 the take home of a household earning 50K.
Last edited by detshen; 11-26-2017 at 08:53 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
developers in Philly are required to designate some % of their units for what they call "affordable housing". If you are a small real estate investor it can bring tax advantages to having a % of your units as "affordable, low income". 
