More on housing & other stuff
Let's talk some more about housing. PJ made some really good points about the problems low and middle income home owners face from unscrupulous lenders and the need to constantly monitor activity of that kind among these subsidized property owners. Spending $100,000 to monitor 600 such homes is only $165 per home. That doesn't seem like much to me if that's per year. And I agree that lower income home owners may not have as much dough on hand for upkeep as their richer neighbors. But let's pretend we set up a system where there's help for mortgage and lending come-ons, upkeep, and even selling the home when it comes time. I'd be willing to bet that the money you spend for that will still be much less than the money we spend now planning for and building more and more low income housing because the housing we built before is now at market prices. I think if we make sure that low and middle income housing built in ecnomically mixed neighborhoods stays available in perpetuity for those potential home owners you get a better community and you don't lose that housing over the years. I think the housng formulas we've been using don't seem to work.
As for Eric's comments about ghettoizing low income people, what I mean is the tendency - like in the Wagenseller neighborhood in Ukiah - to keep building more and more low income housing in the same neighborhoods, crowding more and more low income people into the same corner of town. I was disappointed to hear RCHDC at the recent planning meeting defend the idea of refusing a park in their latest venture because it would cost too much. I think that kind of thinking - that because they're poor and we're doing them such a favor as it is by building them some housing - that we can dispense with the niceties we would certainly demand of higher income housing developments. That's why I prefer the idea of planning your low and middle income housing within your higher end housing so that the lower income folks get the same amenities and feel as though they have a real neighborhood, not a crowded plot of land from which they must escape to have barbecues or neighborhood get togethers. I know organizations like RCHDC work under limitations dictated by law but that doesn't mean we have to continue to do things the same old way forever. Why not challenge laws, create something new and exciting and use the millions of funding we do get to provide real homes, not just roofs and walls. And Eric, I don't know of any program that provides money for rehabbing - that was my idea, that by keeping low and middle income housing available, we would need less money for building more and more and could use the construction funds for rehabbing. By the way I have to say that my first experience with RCHDC - the clearing for no good reason of all the many roses and individual gardens the seniors at Walnut Village had lovingly planted - sort of set my opinion of the organization and the kind of rigidity I still feel exists there.
As for Mark Scaramella, his column, whether it also appears in the AVA, is still just his personal opinion. Other Sunday columnists also are tagged only as local residents even tough Tony Anthony sometimes writes for others and is involved in a number of local activities and Valerie Holm Warda is a Ukiah High School teacher. They all write as individuals and so that is how I present them.
For the person who wanted a local bulletin board, it is about to go live, we have it built it and are testing it now.
Also, I have an idea for another blog. I think it would be fun to ask local students who are away from home at college if they would be willing to blog on our site about what it's like out there, what they're doing, how they like it, is it hard, easy, what's the social life wherever they are etc. Ideas anyone?