Mpls-Issues tip: PLEASE trim the previous message when responding. The redundant characters make tough reading for Digest subscribers and needlessly lengthens download times. ----------- HUD now requires a shift in the bell curve that describes existing income mix in our public housing stock. The details are complicated, but if there is no alternate affordable housing production on an appropriate scale the effect will be that of triage: denying housing to the lowest income-level percentiles in deference to a federal determination to move public housing operating cost away from Washington. Given this understanding, I came into public housing with the phrase "stealth gentrification' on my mind. I have since learned a good deal about income-strengthening strategies that give some public housing residents, perhaps many, a hand up the economic ladder - a mitigating effect that helps reassure the existing public housing population about the stability of their current domiciles and the realistic potential for developing "graduation" strategies. There are roughly 1800 souls on the waiting list for the 5000 public highrises and several thousand souls waiting for other public housing opportunities. There are many current residents who are not going emerge into the workforce because of age or other intractible challenge and there are legions of persons in similar circumstances who are outside my current ken but ascertainable in the aggregate via the Census and other demographic record-keeping sources. Displacees from the Hollman settlement are a demographic drop in the bucket on the demand side of this affordable housing shortfall. As someone inside the system, I agree with the notion that a modest upward shift in the income bell curve will be helpful - I don't have the perspective to know what scale of replacement property maintenance dollars might be forthcoming, but I welcome the stabilizing effect of having modestly more prosperous residents as neighbors - a sentiment no doubt shared in the 21 NRP neighborhoods that are graced with public housing highrises in Minneapolis. But what cost this sense of personal comfort? I share Wizard's concern about cultural anomie - my time under the bridges and on the streets back when brought grim lessons about desperation and anger. Wizard is right to warn about feral behavior. Having thousands of homeless and many more thousands of ill-housed residents is a terrible crisis and answers have to come from the supply side - tinkering with behavior rules and income strategies won't make this mess go away. I also agree with Habitat for Humanity's Director Stephen Seidel, who points out that mixed unit development reserving 20% of of new units at 50% of metro median income (remember, this is a $30,000 annual income benchmark) would require the production of 70,000 units in order to address the known backlog of 15,000 affordable housing units at that rather optimistic annual income standard. Stephen suggests that we may need to revisit economies of scale - aggregating, not decentralizing, low-income housing. My guess is that the "worthy" poor - especially low-income seniors - will see their needs addressed in this way in the years ahead. I can only hope that new faces in City Hall will work more closely with affordable housing advocates than the 50%-of-metro median crowd that have been ducking harder demographic realities by dwelling on middle- and upper-income housing production and talking breezily about suburban responsibilities. Fred Markus, Horn Terrace, Ward Ten _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
