What to do about Affordable Housing in Arlington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/05/26/for-many-poor-families-housing-costs-are-out-of-reach/

Again do people have the right to live wherever they want to??

people move to lower cost areas if they can't afford to live somewhere

P.S. there are thousands of families living on less than 65k in dc

How do they then get to work?

I worked as an EMT for a local government and was eligible for a low income program, it enabled me to live 20 mins from work instead of an hour. Why is this bad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/05/26/for-many-poor-families-housing-costs-are-out-of-reach/

Again do people have the right to live wherever they want to??

people move to lower cost areas if they can't afford to live somewhere

P.S. there are thousands of families living on less than 65k in dc

How do they then get to work?

I worked as an EMT for a local government and was eligible for a low income program, it enabled me to live 20 mins from work instead of an hour. Why is this bad?

It's not bad. It's great. Lots of us would love to have short commutes, but you don't have a right to it. This is DC, lots of people have soul sucking commutes, some because they choose and some because they have to, but there's not an entitlement to a nice commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question

Why do we need affordable housing at all

It just creates artificial floors, screws the middle class who make just over the income cutoff. People don't have right to live anywhere

Is this some liberal white guilt thing?

It may have started as a liberal white thing, but in order to obtain Federal government subsidies for many programs, the Feds are requiring that a certain percentage of housing in areas be affordable. No affordable housing, no government tit.

I'm all for AH. I just want it to be mixed income, so that we're not economically segregating people or sheltering one area of the county from having AH.

Is your concern that individual buildings be mixed income, or the distribution of AH among neighborhoods?

If the former, than you should applaud things like inclusionary zoning. The all AH buildings would be problematic - but they do deliver a lot of units relatively cheaply. Not sure how easy it would be to get that many units in mixed income buildings.

If its neighborhoods, well it has hard to get these buildings in SFH zoned areas. More ADU's would help. The County could buy land in places like the RB corridor for AH, but that would be expensive.

I know it would be hard, but I think the County could do better in helping families buy housing instead of building tenements.

This place leaves me so torn - I came for a good life for my kids, but I don't think it's right to see others struggle so hard. And yet, we standby and let them all be pushed into one or two neighborhoods with no prospect of moving up. If we had more land, Arlington could help those families buy townhouses or do something like Singapore did in the 70s.

First off, those new all AH buildings are hardly tenements.

I am not sure they are all in one or two neighborhoods. Many are on Col Pike and Buckingham Gardens, but there is also that apt complex on Glebe near Crystal City, and I think some proposals elsewhere. Also there are prospects to move up - the neighborhoods they are in are still mixed income, and the kids attend some pretty decent schools - I don't think they are condemned to multigenerational poverty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I do agree with some posters that say that everyone does not have the right to live wherever they want, regardless of whether they can afford it. One of the downsides to being poor is that your choices are more limited.

The number of AH units under even the most aggressive plans would hardly give every poor person the right to live wherever they want. It would give some a chance to live closer in and in better conditions than otherwise - in places where they can have better commutes - and it means that a jurisdiction like Arlington does not end up all affluent.

How segregated do we want our society to be - attempting to enable a few poor people to live in Arlington is not attempting to give everyone the right to live wherever they want, though that rhetoric is often used against AH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I'd love to buy a $2M home in McLean like some of my friends just did, so that we don't have to deal with the cluster that is the future of APS, but we can't afford it. Do I have a right to live there?

You could probably afford a condo in McLean.

[Anonymous]

Your nanny lives in affordable housing. And has Health care subsidies.

Don't you want her to live close to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IIUC Arlington is steadily losing market rate affordable housing, as the last cheap SFH areas in South Arlington gentrify, and as some older apartment complexes are renovated and move upmarket. So really all the guaranteed AH programs are doing is slowing the rate at which the number of poor families increase.

There may be issues about where those guaranteed AH units go, if they are too concentrated in particular locations, but the notion that Arlington is somehow going to be transformed by an influx of poor people goes beyond silly.

You mean decrease, not increase.

Families with lower incomes are being pushed out of Arlington due to market forces. The pressure on the schools is from families in upper-income houses having multiple kids in the schools.

Affordable housing is a red herring, a way to blame an "other" for the inevitably overcrowded schools.

[Anonymous]

I think many people deeply believe that their success was solely the result of their efforts, and therefore others lack of similar success is the result of their lack of efforts.
Then pair this with you views about a collectivist vs an individualist society. If when it boils down to you are strongly individualistic- then there is no basis to support affordable housing.
so you are a poor single mom working as a housekeeper, and you have to commute via bus from woodbridge to get to your job- them's the breaks.

However- if you view society in a more collectivist way- we have an obligation to help those who are less fortunate- rather b/c of life circumstances (born into a poor family), poor choices, less intellect, what have you-
then having affordable housing makes sense.

I personally think Arlington has the best affordable housing policy around. I think they have thought carefully, and tried to execute it well.
I strongly disagree with the assertion that Arlington is trying to cluster affordable housing- every new bldg in arlington either has to have CAF's or pay into the affordable housing fund.
I also think that affordable housing helps achievement- not hurts. It greatly reduces moves and increases stability, which is a major problem in assisting FARMS school children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IIUC Arlington is steadily losing market rate affordable housing, as the last cheap SFH areas in South Arlington gentrify, and as some older apartment complexes are renovated and move upmarket. So really all the guaranteed AH programs are doing is slowing the rate at which the number of poor families increase.

There may be issues about where those guaranteed AH units go, if they are too concentrated in particular locations, but the notion that Arlington is somehow going to be transformed by an influx of poor people goes beyond silly.

You mean decrease, not increase.

Families with lower incomes are being pushed out of Arlington due to market forces. The pressure on the schools is from families in upper-income houses having multiple kids in the schools.

Affordable housing is a red herring, a way to blame an "other" for the inevitably overcrowded schools.

Yes, I meant decrease.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question

Why do we need affordable housing at all

It just creates artificial floors, screws the middle class who make just over the income cutoff. People don't have right to live anywhere

Is this some liberal white guilt thing?

It may have started as a liberal white thing, but in order to obtain Federal government subsidies for many programs, the Feds are requiring that a certain percentage of housing in areas be affordable. No affordable housing, no government tit.

I'm all for AH. I just want it to be mixed income, so that we're not economically segregating people or sheltering one area of the county from having AH.

Is your concern that individual buildings be mixed income, or the distribution of AH among neighborhoods?

If the former, than you should applaud things like inclusionary zoning. The all AH buildings would be problematic - but they do deliver a lot of units relatively cheaply. Not sure how easy it would be to get that many units in mixed income buildings.

If its neighborhoods, well it has hard to get these buildings in SFH zoned areas. More ADU's would help. The County could buy land in places like the RB corridor for AH, but that would be expensive.

I know it would be hard, but I think the County could do better in helping families buy housing instead of building tenements.

This place leaves me so torn - I came for a good life for my kids, but I don't think it's right to see others struggle so hard. And yet, we standby and let them all be pushed into one or two neighborhoods with no prospect of moving up. If we had more land, Arlington could help those families buy townhouses or do something like Singapore did in the 70s.

First off, those new all AH buildings are hardly tenements.

I am not sure they are all in one or two neighborhoods. Many are on Col Pike and Buckingham Gardens, but there is also that apt complex on Glebe near Crystal City, and I think some proposals elsewhere. Also there are prospects to move up - the neighborhoods they are in are still mixed income, and the kids attend some pretty decent schools - I don't think they are condemned to multigenerational poverty.

https://www.arlnow.com/2016/05/13/nauck-apartment-residents-demand-better-living-conditions/

Maybe it's not Cabrini-Green, but we can and should do better.

The economic profile of the west end of the Pike (west of Four Mile Run) has decreased significantly in recent years, and there are more proposals for this area that will push it even further into concentrated poverty territory. Would I like it if developers and retailers were not prejudiced against areas that are impoverished? You bet. But this is real life, not a fantasy. Businesses do not locate in poor neighborhoods. And mixed income developments, to balance out the affordable housing that has been built, are not as likely to materialize once a neighborhood is committed in such large quantity to poverty for 60 or more years. Concentrating poverty into a handful of schools isn't a great idea. Not for the kids who are currently living in poverty, nor for the kids who are more affluent but never even meet kids who come from less privileged circumstances. One can criticize the current system without being against AH or the residents who live in AH. Again, it may not be by design, but the county is not succeeding by their own measures in their attempt at geographic distribution. Not yet anyway. Hopefully they can do better in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
First off, those new all AH buildings are hardly tenements.

I am not sure they are all in one or two neighborhoods. Many are on Col Pike and Buckingham Gardens, but there is also that apt complex on Glebe near Crystal City, and I think some proposals elsewhere. Also there are prospects to move up - the neighborhoods they are in are still mixed income, and the kids attend some pretty decent schools - I don't think they are condemned to multigenerational poverty.

https://www.arlnow.com/2016/05/13/nauck-apartment-residents-demand-better-living-conditions/


Er, poor customer service? C'mon now. A tenement is a place that is physically barely liveable. Not a poorly managed building. Or even one with crime. And, BTW, that is one building - out of several CAH buildings in Arlington.

Maybe it's not Cabrini-Green, but we can and should do better.


Even Cabrini Green was not a tenement. Tenements are the horrible places people lived in that projects like Cabrini Green replaced. Places without hot water, often without indoor plumbing, with limited light and air, subject to frequent fires, disease, etc.


The economic profile of the west end of the Pike (west of Four Mile Run) has decreased significantly in recent years,

I am not sure about that. Yes, there have been a few low income buildings built, but there has been at least one new market rate building (5500) and I think the market rate older hi rises have at least held their own - and as far as I can gather, the nearby SFHs have been appreciating.

and there are more proposals for this area that will push it even further into concentrated poverty territory.

I believe there are also some market rate development proposals.

[Anonymous]

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/breaking_ground/2016/02/goodbye-food-star-arlington-board-backs-new.html

[Anonymous]

The affordable housing study shows that the number of "market rate affordable" units -- the apartments that a family of four making 60% of the average median income of $107,000 can afford -- dropped from over 10,000 apartments in 2004 to just over 3,000 units in 2014. That is the displacement of 7,000 moderate income families who lived in Arlington--for example, the huge Arna Valley complex that was knocked down and replaced with "The Avalon" and "The Harlowe," or the blocks and blocks of Buckingham Village apartments that are now $800,000 townhouses.

While yes, this is market forces at work and developers have the right to build on their property to its highest use within the zoning laws, its also not unreasonable that the county should try and do something to help out lower income county residents by trying to staunch the losses. If you immigrated from here in the 90's, had your kids at VHC, send them to APS schools, work in Arlington or DC or Fairfax, whatever---it sucks that your landlord can kick you out and you have to move to Manassas that is an hour from your job and pull your kids out of school and where you don't know anyone. No one is entitled to live anywhere, but it's not crazy to say that as an extremely wealthy county--that is wealthy in part because the value of real estate has increased so much--we should spend some of that wealth to help out those displaced by its acquisition.

[Anonymous]

^^sorry, immigrated from somewhere else TO here, Arlington is the only place in the US you know

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/05/26/for-many-poor-families-housing-costs-are-out-of-reach/

Again do people have the right to live wherever they want to??

people move to lower cost areas if they can't afford to live somewhere

P.S. there are thousands of families living on less than 65k in dc

Do people have the right to have millions of dollars in public money spent on parks for dogs?

People can move to lower cost areas if they can't afford lawns for their dogs to crap on