Ok, this is becoming a habit, but I’m going to link to Eye on Albuquerque again. I sure could have used the Eye in my ear this morning when I was on the KUNM call-in show discussing the affordable housing bond:
The tricky part [of the affordable housing bond] is the last part, that says “this program maintains affordability by limiting the amount of equity that accrues to owners and keeping the sales price below the market level for subsequent buyers.” The ordinance creating this affordable housing “opportunity” is O-06-8 and was passed just a little over a year ago. The Ordinance explains it this way:
“In a neighborhood with increasing housing prices the goal is to preserve a mixed income environment and avoid the dislocation of low income residents by creating a reserve of permanent workforce housing protected from price increases and danger of converting to market rate housing, allowing renters to own their housing, and otherwise financially insulating low income residents from financial burdens of gentrification while accruing its benefits.”
What that means is that the city will use our tax dollars to help “low to moderate” income families buy homes that are “protected” from the market, making them “permanently” affordable. In other words, these “owners” will be paying a mortgage on a property that they don’t truly own because they won’t be getting the equity that is naturally created through time and the free market increase in property value. In short, their financial position will be only slightly better than renters because most of the equity they receive would be the equity that they put directly into the property through their payments.
Yeah, that’s what I meant to say this morning. So, I’m beginning to wonder… can we draft the Eye to run for office – maybe as a publicly funded candidate. I’m sure Eye readers would be happy to donate $5.