I offer another option for folks to consider, and a comment about the context of the "Affordable Housing" issue in general:
ANOTHER HOUSING OPTION
There is still space to be a part of a form of corporation that is very old and very new, and which is as responsive to the needs of the land and the community in which it is formed as it is to the needs of the shareholders. That form of corporation is the cooperative. More specifically, the housing cooperative. It is about economic democracy and building community within our neighborhoods.
Housing corporations are not a panacea, but they are one part of the housing puzzle. Housing cooperatives structure ownership to build community, access to home ownership, and true roots in a place with others.
The Nicollet Cooperative Housing Association has a couple of openings left for people to buy a share! For information, contact the Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund (612-331-9103). Housing Cooperatives can do cool things that you might not immediately associate with "housing." We can use our cooperative buying power to buy food and other supplies, to help form a car-share hub, or to develop clean cooperative electric power generation on-site. Cooperation and economic democracy are all about empowering people through carefully-shaped corporate structure.
To buy into our particular cooperative, for example, you only need $2,000 down. Not affordable for everyone, but better than, say, $10,000. Monthly payments are made like rent or a mortgage, and members build equity. The members work together as landlords and as owners of the corporation. This can be educational as well! We have to set and understand long term budgeting for all maintenance concerns, taxes and such. We make decisions about house rules and we are responsible as corporate shareholders to "mind the business!" This is good, old fashioned hard work for a good purpose within the context of a specific neighborhood and place. i recommend it! Housing cooperatives have a long history of success from New York to Chicago to.... Minneapolis!
WEALTH, POVERTY AND "AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Second, having also read Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" amoung other excellent works, I agree that the so-called "affordable housing" crisis is one dimension of a much larger phenomenon: the most massive and least-discussed subsidy of all: the lives of the very poor are poured out to subsidize the wealthy.
Unless we address the growing economic disparity and unaccountability in our capitalist system gone awry, there is no real solution -- it is that simple.
Most folks do not realize that Adam Smith wrote about ethics before he wrote about economics. The "free market" is one predicated upon and defined by clear moral codes and absolutely transparent and consistent enforcement. We are mired in a market which is defined by the code of "economic rape" with little or no enforcement or accountability.
The free-est market also takes into account the cost of "the common good" or "common wealth" required to sustain economic vigour. Related to housing, this means that landlords would not be expected to do social service, but that social services (including appropriate supportive housing) would be available to those in need of them.
I think we can at least consider in this forum that our "affordable housing" problem is one part of a bigger elephant -- social and economic injustice wrought by an economic philosphy devoid of moral or ethical foundation.
"Accountability" does not exist for the biggest, most rapacious players in this Darwinian context, but may be a smokescreen for keeping the smallest players in line -- including, may I note, small landlords and landholders.
Witness the power of big corporate players to make millions while going bankrupt in downtown Minneapolis, or to shape the urban landscape into an unsustainable monstrosity with ramps, roads, sportsdomes and other structures built to destroy the watershed, soil and air, as well as the relationships of people to people and to the earth.
"Affordable Housing" must be seen in this context of capitalism untethered from spiritual or moral moorings. Some time ago I posted a reference to an article about the impact of fascism on urban planning -- the unity of corrupt government with corrupt corporate leadership rips the fabric of our culture to shreds while building monuments to hubris and folly. Remember Mr. Moses and New York City and remember our own urban planning history -- from trolleys to freeways, from urban industry knit into the fabric of the bioregion to a bioregion at the mercy of corporations who extract wealth and abandon the husk left behind -- to see illustrations of the point,
Economic democracy is the solution: absolute accountability for all persons and corporations to a strict and clear moral code translated into law which is rigourously enforced with complete transparency. There are people meeting regularly in Minneapolis, Minnesota to make capitalism fruitful under the rule of law again -- not a tool of the whims of a de facto economic nobility. Check it out!
--Gary Hoover -- King Field
