Barbara Lickness wrote: Do we know how much housing we need? Using regional indicators and current homeless numbers and other stats should help us arrive at an estimated number. Do we know what type of housing we need? Single Room Occupancy? Efficiencies? 1-2-3-4 bedrooms? Single family homes? duplexes? condos? townhouses? homeownership? rental? Do we know what we have? As a person who has worked with groups attempting to get that information I can tell you it isn't readily available in nice little binders.
[GDL] All due respect to Barb and others, but these issues have been hashed out and rehashed and studied and then studied some more in all the task forces and other commissioned studies from various institutions. To be honest, what is more difficult to track is the actual development projects underway and how they will actually deliver on real affordability--those figures are difficult to come by, and I don't believe anyone has a comprehensive picture of that because so little information is shared. Each time someone mentions the need to find out more information, my immediate thought (though not always correct, mind you) is that there's a reason to delay the inevitable conclusion: we need more housing, particularly (1) housing for those who are now labeled or called "hard to house"; (2) housing for larger and extended families, meaning 3-4+ bedroom units; (3) housing that is realistically affordable--not something that creeps up into a 60-80% of MMI range that now seems to be the new affordability creep (such housing is really code for gentrification). Yeesh. It's not a hard exercise, really, to do demographic projections, and such projections are neat and fun projects for all involved. The harder issue is dealing with the real needs and dealing with them on a level that has meaning to the families that are doubled up, stuck in deteriorating housing because of the lack of real choice, or just stuck and making amends until they finally decide to move elsewhere because not much seems to be getting done except studying the issue. Do something. Tired and not wanting to see anymore, Gregory Luce North Phillips (work) North Phillips Press is a publication of Project 504, a housing related neighborhood organization based in the Phillips neighborhood. _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
