Affordable Housing

Move to the boondocks. The solution for affordable housing for the newly married and lower paid has been to move to the “exurbs”.  When we were married in St. Louis Mo. in 1964, we found a 4 bedroom ranch fixer-upper on an acre lot in a subdivision in St. Charles Mo. We paid $750 in back taxes, saved this home from foreclosure and assumed a $16,000 loan at 4% with a monthly payment of $150.  It was next door to my brother, who tipped me off to this deal.  At the time, new houses were $30,000.  My commute to downtown St. Louis was 30 minutes with no gridlock, ever.

In the North Atlanta Metro area, Cherokee County has been the “exurb” of choice.  Harmony Lakes offers large new houses on small lots for half the cost of the same house in North Fulton or North DeKalb.  When we had manufacturing jobs in North Metro, our employees lived in Woodstock and other rural areas.

After 2008, there was a push for high density housing in transit villages to increase MARTA ridership. The success of these developments is flat and has been limited by our poor economy.  Urban living was pitched to new college grads and they responded by moving back home with their parents because the rents were $1600 a month. Their government student loan balances were between $30,000 and $100,000. Their jobs were near minimum wage at $8 to $9 per hour.

Now in 2016, the HUD push to integrate the population based on race and income has destroyed property values in target areas like Westchester County NY. It forces HUD subsidized housing to the affluent suburbs using anti-discrimination law suits. It is the East Coast version of California’s San Andres forest fires. It moves welfare families to the suburbs and ruins the schools. This destroys single family housing values. Congress needs to end HUD anti-discrimination laws close HUD.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader