affordable housing/homeless?

[Jon Ford]

Here in Palo Alto, there is supposedly much  more affordable housing than 
before the dot.com debacle. I personally have been contemplating lowering 
the rent on the studio-style basement hovel I rent out to a couple of down 
and out  former dot comers, both of whom still manage to drive BMWs. 
However, upon perusing the local newspaper, I discovered that "affordable" 
here still means "affordable for those with at least five-six figure 
incomes," so I breathed  a sigh of relief-- homeless  folks, you're out of 
luck--again. However, I did refrain from my usual hefty holiday increase and 
let it stay stable at a figure that used to be what you'd pay  for  monthly 
mortgage and property taxes on an entire house.

Jon "Scrooge" MacFord


>From: Roger Baker <rcbaker@eden.infohwy.com>
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>Subject: Homeless crisis in Britain versus US
>Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 01:44:21 -0800
>
>The British crisis revolves around the fact that there are now less
>homeless in Britain
>so charities have to compete harder to get their fair share of them --
>and may
>now have to merge in the face of declining demand.
>
>http://society.guardian.co.uk/charityfinance/story/0,8150,623962,00.html
>
>
>                      *******************************************
>
>But meanwhile in the USA -- (and as the war against evildoers gets all
>the top headlines):
>
>
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17779-2001Dec22.html
>
>
>Homeless Surge In N.Y. Symbol Of New Crisis
>
>By Michael Powell
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>Sunday, December 23, 2001; Page A01
>
>
>NEW YORK -- Curled up on sidewalks and jammed into crowded shelters, the
>masses of
>homeless men, women and children in this city have reached record
>numbers, surpassing
>the worst levels of the last recession.
>
>About 29,400 homeless live in city shelters and hot-plate hotel rooms
>each night,
>including 12,500 children. They are the face of a poor New York that
>supposedly
>vanished after the early 1990s.
>
>Now they are everywhere. A decaying economy and, even more important, a
>severe
>lack of affordable housing have driven the current crisis. In the past
>few years, housing
>costs in New York's poor neighborhoods have spiked sharply, rising far
>faster than in
>wealthy districts.
>
>Homelessness has jumped 13 percent nationwide this year. In Chicago,
>homelessness
>jumped 22 percent, in San Francisco, 20 percent. In Washington, the
>number of homeless
>families has risen by 32 percent -- after four years of decline. D.C.
>Village, the city's intake
>shelter for families, is at capacity, and about 600 men and women bed
>down each night on
>city streets.
>
>The problem is most pronounced in the Northeast, where rental housing
>costs are among
>the nation's highest. In Massachusetts, there has been a 40 percent rise
>in homeless
>families since August 1999. "It's exploded on us," said Dick Powers of
>the state's homeless
>agency. "The reason is very simple: There's no affordable housing."...




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