Affordable Housing Tour

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TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 2008

Affordable Housing: the hypocrisy

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Recently the WP Times wrote about a tour by officials and interested activists of affordable housing units in apartment buildings including the new Avalon.

It is my understanding that one person wishing to live alone may only get an affordable studio apartment.  Did those on tour inspect any studio apartments?  The Avalon has studio apartments as small as 381 square feet.  I am guessing that the Avalon's affordable apartments are in the back on a low floor facing the garage.  Just a guess.  If no affordable persons want them, is the Avalon free to rent them at market rate?

Is an affordable individual to live in an apartment of 381 square feet?  Comparably small apartments are allowed for more inhabitants, I think up to 1,000 square feet for four people. 

Or is all this just a Kabuki dance to make those who advocate this silly policy feel good about themselves?

Why doesn't the City of White Plains publish the following:

1. The number and percentage of affordable apartments actually rented by each of the buildings required to do so.

2. The size of the affordable apartments.

3. The rent paid.

4. Who is renting them.

5. Who is deciding who rents them.

6. Criteria for avoiding what appears to be an unavoidable conflict of interest between city employees judging which city employees get what in affordable housing.

These items illustrate why the entire policy is silly.  It is unfair for most of us to subsidize a few of us in an arbitrary, secret manner that is beyond any reasonable oversight.  Suppose the one person living in an affordable studio wants to have another person move in?  Does the government bureaucracy weigh in?

Governments should end this very old policy and let people live where they want by paying them more money so that they can make their own decisions without favors from co-workers and scrutiny by government  bureaucrats.