01 June 2018

Here In The Nation - And Here in Mesa, Arizona - We Have A Problem ...It's Called Affordable Housing

That's right - where in any mention of a massive make-over that can transform downtown Mesa do you see the phrase affordable housing.
There are two more missing words: equitable and inclusive.
By all recent reports about "The Old Donut-Hole" it looks like Mesa is becoming not more inclusive, but less inclusive.
Private real estate developers have in effect stolen the platform of LISC Phoenix where Our Future is On The Line.
That might be the bottom-line from impact investing fostered by recent  changes in tax acts unless people who live here in Mesa get more active and engaged to make sure affordable housing for the middle-class is one of the outcomes of new opportunities for all.
Outside of Mesa - The Bubble We Live In - this is being called  a crisis and a catastrophe.
Here inside the Ozone it's almost invisible to some.
This blog started out in February 2015 highlighting initiatives in affordable housing: Encore On First, the Gorman Company's Escobedo at Verde Vista, and Community Development Partner's El Rancho Del Arte, most recently with the opening in June 2018 of Phase II El Rancho Del Sol.
Three years of progress in building affordable innovative housing along the line of Valley Metro LightRail.
< Now nothing more to show.
Why is that the reality in the new housing market boom?
Some of the reasons and roots are presented in the featured well-researched report written by Bryce Covert that appeared last Friday, May 24th in The Nation.
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Blogger Note: Our city of Mesa has some of its own unique roots going back for at least six generations to the LDS pioneers sent from Salt City, and resistance from some sectors  . . . but let's leave that aside for now
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 The Deep, Uniquely American Roots of Our Affordable-Housing Crisis
Nearly half of all renters can’t afford rent, and over half a million Americans are homeless on any given night. How did we get here?
". . . it is ... a harbinger of trends that are under way everywhere in a country in which rents are increasing while incomes stagnate. . . It’s a problem in every major city and in every state. . . Today, there’s a deficit of more than 7.2 million rental homes inexpensive enough for the lowest-income people to afford, . . "
How did we get here?
Read more >
 

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