Reply to City of Alexandria rolls out timeline for massive housing reform project

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can someone explain to me like I am 5 how there is a housing crisis in Alexandria when the last report on homelessness said there were 152 people in the City experiencing homelessness in 2023 - down from 198 in 2019?

I will concede the large influx of undocumented immigrants to our sanctuary city may need housing, but I truly doubt they will be renting the $3.5k a month apartment in the six-plex built on Loyola avenue with no parking spot for their unmarked work van.  And why would a young couple choose to live in that same six-plex when they can move into The Porter and get happy hours in the lobby?  So maybe that couple would move into a $1million duplex built on that same lot, so the removal of SFH zoning has now increased housing capacity by 1 for that lot. And not anything affordable.  And not a speck of grass remaining.

My favorite talking point of the council is removal of SFH zoning is desegregation - not even hiding behind the implication that POC cannot afford SFHs so something lesser needs created. What a pessimistic view. [/quote]

https://housingmatters.urban.org/research-summary/addressing-americas-affordable-housing-crisis
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2023/50-mayors-us-cities/housing/
https://nhc.org/two-issues-define-americas-new-housing-crisis/
https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives/us-housing-shortage
https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/priced-out-the-state-of-housing-in-america
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/05/business/single-family-zoning-laws/index.html
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1109345201/theres-a-massive-housing-shortage-across-the-u-s-heres-how-bad-it-is-where-you-l
https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/nowhere-live-profits-disinvestment-and-american-housing-crisis
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/upshot/housing-shortage-us.html[/quote]

But in the City of Alexandria, right now, where is the crisis?  Where are the droves of Residents (the Council's constituency) that are  in "a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger" over housing?  Unfortunately financial inequities exist, and they always will even in countries purporting to be socialist / communist (look at the immigrant populations in Sweden and France).  Alexandria need not destroy itself so DINKs can buy Del Ray townhouses or the Hill staffer can rent an apartment in Potomac Yard.  Weirdly, there are plenty of apartments available in the West End - there are 46 units available right now at The Sherwood at Southern Towers, so they are at 89% occupancy.   Right --- that developer who will make a cool million knocking down that perfectly good SFH to build three townhouses doesn't get a dime if we just encourage occupancy of the existing housing stock.  So it is a crisis of not getting the house one wants or thinks they deserve - what if one wants a SFH, do they not deserve that?[/quote]

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