Interesting Article (low income, homes, tenants)

[cm143]

Nowhere To Go: As DC Housing Costs Rise, Residents Are Left With Fewer Affordable Housing Options

DC Fiscal Policy Institute » Archives » Nowhere To Go: As DC Housing Costs Rise, Residents Are Left With Fewer Affordable Housing Options

[Mrs. 14th & You]

That is interesting. I've heard from folks who work in housing policy that one of the problems is that we're destroying subsidized housing faster than we're replacing it. For example, blighted areas like Sursum Corda are getting redeveloped (a good thing), but replacement developments tend to be mixed income, which automatically means fewer affordable units. Fenty has failed to come up with a plan to address this issue. In Montgomery County and parts of Northern Virginia, governments are requiring that for each new development, a certain percentage of units are set aside for low income tenants (to mixed success depending on the incentives and loopholes for builders). DC has yet to even implement such basic regulations.

Though the report focuses on the impoverished -- certainly a vulnerable population -- I've noticed that there is little housing for the middle class. I had to laugh a few years ago when new "affordable" homes went up east of the Anacostia and were priced in the mid $300s.

[Zippy7fo]

Fenty-Ant Williams -and the Developers are all in the same bed. They do not want affordable housing for the poor. They want those people to relocate to PG County. Because with them goes crime, community costs to service, and other problems and in comes a educated, motivated workforce, highly taxable, will spend greater protion of personal income in local business and will not recquire so much in social services....What you see in DC is happening in NY, Oakland, New Orleans.....