Winter is a good time to raise the issue of affordable housing, and the month following the joys of the Christmas season is a good time to settle it ("Despite rule, few affordable units created in new developments," Dec. 27). The lack of affordable housing poses a significant struggle for the working poor — those who work over 40 hours per week and still cannot make ends meet because housing costs continue to rise faster than wages. We have seen these people — including college graduates — tired and discouraged, handing us a bag of hamburgers, stocking shelves of cheap goods, and working various other low-paying jobs in an effort to simply subsist. Yet we have not asked ourselves: Why is there no rent control? Why are housing appraisals not true cost appraisals? Why can't planning departments plan sufficient minimum wage housing instead of continuing to issue building permits for higher income residents who already have affordable homes?
This issue is not simply a matter of optional, bleeding heart compassion (though compassion perhaps should suffice). It is a pragmatic concern closely tied to the economic health of our country. We have shown depressed economic growth since the Great Recession — with the percentage of working, labor-eligible people at 63 percent and still falling — and it will continue to do so as long as money flow continues to be dammed in the murky pools of real estate.
Given the apparent lack of results from our passive trust in our legislators, we citizens need to more actively guide them to set appropriate housing policy for all the working poor — now! Studies have already been done. A prime example of a well-conceived and well managed affordable housing project — Ethel R. Lawrence Homes in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey — has shown reduced crime and improved health (and, thus, performance) for its low income residents. Let us make such projects multiply so that America will be all it can be again by taking advantage of the talents of all our people, relieving burdens that no one can be expected to bear and still remain optimally productive.
Ann Dalrymple, Baltimore