QUOTE(Young Curmudgeon @ Jan 17 2005, 05:37 PM)
Steve,
All deference to your very balanced track record around here, but the above comment seems patently elitist -- and not very practical. Surely you want your children's teachers, city employees and other vital Folsom professional and service workers in low income brackets to also have the same opportunity to live in the community, right? I know of few teachers who can afford to own a home in Folsom, but I've never met anyone who didn't put great weight in the importance of hiring and keeping good teachers in this area. What do you say to them? Poor career choice? What about a Folsom garbageman who has to live in Rancho Cordova? Maybe we'd want our children to strive a bit higher, but someone has to take the garbage, and it's an honest living by people that deserve to be included in the Folsom community. These people serve the community everyday, yet so few actually get to reap the benefits of their work! So many of these jobs take a commitment that exceeds the benefit of a regular paycheck.
If someone wants to attack conventional thought on affordable housing, I might join them. Apartments, for example, are efficient in theory, but the practicality of management often works to the detriment of the buildings' original purpose. Units become much less cost effective to maintain to their original standards after 20 years, and health standards seem only enforced on the most egregious offensives. And just like anything else, a shortage of housing or a monopoly on apartments in the area can create unreasonable spikes in rent to the point of exclusion of a great majority of the population they were intended to serve. I've lived in too many apartments that fell far short of a "decent, safe and sanitary accommodation that costs no more than 30% of gross household income after taxes." I'm no socialist, but it doesn't take an Ivy League economist to realize restraints are needed to lessen the impact of extreme market forces such as we have witnessed in California in recent years.
Affordable housing is a worthy torch for a local gov't to carry, though, because it's based in some of the best ideas Americans value most -- equality, diversity, and true freedom to pursue one's own happiness. I encourage all of you to get involved with the public discussion and offer creative alternatives rather than attacking the idea in general.
All deference to your very balanced track record around here, but the above comment seems patently elitist -- and not very practical. Surely you want your children's teachers, city employees and other vital Folsom professional and service workers in low income brackets to also have the same opportunity to live in the community, right? I know of few teachers who can afford to own a home in Folsom, but I've never met anyone who didn't put great weight in the importance of hiring and keeping good teachers in this area. What do you say to them? Poor career choice? What about a Folsom garbageman who has to live in Rancho Cordova? Maybe we'd want our children to strive a bit higher, but someone has to take the garbage, and it's an honest living by people that deserve to be included in the Folsom community. These people serve the community everyday, yet so few actually get to reap the benefits of their work! So many of these jobs take a commitment that exceeds the benefit of a regular paycheck.
If someone wants to attack conventional thought on affordable housing, I might join them. Apartments, for example, are efficient in theory, but the practicality of management often works to the detriment of the buildings' original purpose. Units become much less cost effective to maintain to their original standards after 20 years, and health standards seem only enforced on the most egregious offensives. And just like anything else, a shortage of housing or a monopoly on apartments in the area can create unreasonable spikes in rent to the point of exclusion of a great majority of the population they were intended to serve. I've lived in too many apartments that fell far short of a "decent, safe and sanitary accommodation that costs no more than 30% of gross household income after taxes." I'm no socialist, but it doesn't take an Ivy League economist to realize restraints are needed to lessen the impact of extreme market forces such as we have witnessed in California in recent years.
Affordable housing is a worthy torch for a local gov't to carry, though, because it's based in some of the best ideas Americans value most -- equality, diversity, and true freedom to pursue one's own happiness. I encourage all of you to get involved with the public discussion and offer creative alternatives rather than attacking the idea in general.
Young C,
Thanks for the props. I am not elitist, and don't intend to come off that way.
I come from a blue collar background. My dad grew up poor and black in the South. He served in the US Navy aboard submarines, among the most dangerous of assignments, during World War II, and again in Korea. He became a mailman after that, and in 1965, moved our family of 8 from New Orleans to San Francisco, jamming the whole lot of us in a '56 Plymouth sedan. He arrived without a job, as the postmaster refused to sign a transfer request for him, telling him he had to resign and re-apply in SF. He eventually got on in Daly City, then worked nights as a janitor, and weekends as a caterer/bartender, eventually getting us in position to buy his first and only home in 1973, at the age of 52. We lived in South San Francisco, where housing was cheap enough. Couldn't afford SF, nor Daly City, where he worked. No affordable housing programs for him.
I lived in Foster City for 8 years. It's a beautiful and desirable community. They had a housing program whereby they would give downpayment assistance of $50,000, with a home price cap of $330,000. I was on the list for it for a couple of years, but when my name came up, I was about $5000 over the salary limit, and besides, there were no homes available for $330,000. That experience taught me that I had to do it myself. It also made me realize that waiting for programs can cost a guy money. While I waited, housing prices skyrocketed.
What did I do? I moved to an affordable community, Folsom.
Had I been worse off, I'd have moved to an even more affordable community, like Rancho.
I lost my job 2 weeks after moving up here. It was just before 9/11, and the economy was bad and about to get worse. I did odd jobs, borrowed from a relative, and took some of the crappiest work I'd ever done, so that I could afford to live here. Many suggested that I sell. I didn't. I kept going, selling software over the phone (my company didn't have money for travel), started teaching karate at night, hauled stuff, and even took a job where I had to commute to Oakland, all so that I could live here. I changed careers, and today, things are much better.
I didn't demand affordable housing. I did what I had to, just like everyone else. Sure, some are lucky enough to have tons o' dough, or generous stock options from their companies, but most of us do it the old fashioned way, without affordable housing programs.
I know someone on this board here who works for Intel. He's not gettin rich. Makes what a teacher does, and less than what a fireman or cop does. He bought a house in Amador county, where he could afford to. When the opportunity arrived, he sold his place, taking the equity he earned to put down on a house in Folsom. It was a struggle, and perhaps still is, but now he's got equity in his new place, and he's happy to be here.
If a school district or fire department finds that they can't attract the kind of employees they want, they can do what private companies do, they can pay more, they can subsidize their housing.
To set aside homes for those who don't go through the struggle so that they can have an easy means to a nice house is wrong.
So, state law says we have to find a way to provide housing for the poor. It doesn't say that if you build new homes, you don't have a right to sell them at market prices. Affordable housing can be existing homes or apartments. I see nothing wrong with affordable apartment housing. The best thing to do is place a limit on time spent there, so that people will be forced to take care of themselves, working harder, earning more money, so that they don't depend on us for the rest of their lives.
