"Affordable" Housing Disconnect

Another brainless Tribune article advocating AH, flagged by a reader.

Email from one of my friends raising these points:

Just take a few minutes and read this carefully. The cognitive dissonance within the AH effort is amazing. They're trying to "save" affordable rentals, yet at the same time they've crafted programs so that previous units sunset. Maybe somebody's making some money in there somehow, but it seems illogical to set aside affordable stuff and then have it go market rate; unless it gets so trashed over time that the only way to get it fixed up is to allow it to go mkt rate?? If they're so trashed after several years of being "affordable", then what's that say about the tenants and the morality of the program?

Their "three factors" that "led to the widespread changes in the rental mkt" are specious. If a lot of rentals went owner, then a lot of renters became owners: the effects cancel out. Asserting that rents went up cuz housing prices went up sounds logical, and used to be the case, but it wasn't this time around. Housing went up because affordability went up due to the new "affordability products" (ARM's, no-doc loans, zero down, etc). Rents had no such dynamic and so stagnated. The normal relationship between housing prices and rents disconnected. Rents have now gone UP as house prices have softened.

Finally, doesn't anyone ask what we are doing here? I assume all the folks they are trying to place in "affordable" rentals are now currently housed. So, it's not a matter that there isn't enough housing, it's just not at the right price for the MacArthur foundation. If we had tens of thousands of families living on the streets because we didn't have enough housing, this would be a crisis. But, we don't. One could argue that the housing many are in is lousy, but, judging by the advocates' own words, nice housing appears to get turned into lousy housing by the very renters they are trying to help??

I just find it Orwellian that these "advocates" bray for funding for more units due to restriction expiration and "building deterioration" all the while they have been the ones setting these policies that sunset the housing and allow it to fall into disrepair. It's amazing that no one asks these questions.

Here's another email:

The market works. What is "affordable" is determined by the market. If the units don't sell or are not rented, they go empty for a time, then the owner lowers the price/rent until they are "affordable." Every occupied unit is by definition "affordable." As you say, it's not as those there is not enough housing.

"All of us depend at one time on affordable rental units" is the classic liberal effort to make it about all of us, like getting all of us depending on the government for healthcare, retirement, etc. I didn't live in a great apartment in my 20's, but I didn't expect anyone else to pay for a nicer one.

The line that got me was at the end: "Not all developers and owners are money-grubbing capitalists." Ideology, not charity, drives these people who are anti-American socialists. They overlook the fact that the only way for capitalists make money is by satisfying the needs of consenting adults who would rather have the good or service being sold than the money in their pocket. The better the capitalist serves the needs of others (not himself), the better he will do. That is the incentive system that has created the greatest wealth for the greatest number in the history of the world.

One more email:

How very well put. It seems to me to be something we covered in Economics 101, as [previous email] points out, that if the thing is selling, then it's affordable. If it's not, market forces will drive the price down to a more "affordable" level. I lived in a totally crappy apartment in my 20s, but like [previous email], I never felt "entitled" to more, and I certainly didn't look to anyone else to pay my way. I, too, would LOVE to spend less of our monthly budget on housing--but it costs what it costs, and you make adjustments accordingly. Wanting to live someplace like Glencoe was the incentive for all of us to get an education, work hard, and move here. Now these folks are saying that those who didn't go to college, and didn't make more responsible choices are "entitled" to the same thing that you and I worked hard, made good choices about, and PAID for, with our hard-earned money. It's maddening. And it seems to be a value judgment, too----these people are "entitled" to live here....so they are somehow more worthy to live here than the people they will be driving out.