URA eyes bond issue of up to $42 million to support more affordable housing in Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority intends to issue up to $42 million in bonds to increase affordable housing in the city, a top priority of...
www.post-gazette.com
The local Urban Redevelopment Authority wishes to borrow tens of millions of dollars, so that it can promote the creation of "affordable" housing in the County. The loan will be repaid over time by the [taxpayers of the] City (Pittsburgh).
There is a national crisis going on, I am told, and I don't doubt it. The cost of housing keeps going up, while a large swath of the population - growing larger every day - lacks the monthly income to afford it. In a cornucopia of different ways and programs, the taxpayers (Federal, State, Local) are "asked" to contribute to resolving the problem. Residential real estate investors and developers are often told that they must include a percentage of "affordable" units in their proposed developments, to the extent that that requirement often renders the developments un-viable, and they are abandoned or cancelled.
But what would the current situation be if government were completely removed from the housing "equation"?
Imagine a world in which children grow up in a household knowing that in order for them to become "emancipated adults," they will have to have sufficient income to pay rent, utilities, and living expenses on their own. There is no Uncle Sugar who will set them up with food stamps, subsidized housing, welfare payments, MEDICAID, and provide for whatever else one might need to be emancipated from one's parents. Having an illegitimate child will not create a new "household" in and of itself; you would be on your own, with whatever support you could get from family, friends, church, whatever.
Owners of residential investment property would then have a smaller target market, and rents would rise only when there is a population that can afford to pay them.
"Middle Class" and "Working Class" people already live in that world, believe it or not. This is why so many of today's Yoots are remaining in their parents' households until they are well into their twenties and beyond. This may be said to be a "problem," but I as a taxpayer don't have to concern myself with it. In short, it is an expensive proposition to go out on your own today, and this generation is having to wait a decade longer than, say, the Boomers did when they hit their 20's.
It has been observed by people smarter than me that college tuition costs (and college housing costs) are rising much faster than the rate of inflation because the States and Feds are facilitating the payment of these outrageous amounts through grants and loans, without regard to whether the outlays are rational economically. Hence the trillion-dollar student loan "crisis."
The same principle has made it mark on housing costs at the bottom level. There are so many subsidies available that landlords feel free charging inordinate amounts for their units. In fact, millions of Americans have recently experienced substantial increases in their rents when the landlords' costs have barely risen at all. But this is all facilitated by government subsidies at the bottom level.
Why are taxpayers hit with subsidizing the cost of housing for people who have rejected the middle-class values that they themselves live by? If you cannot afford to be economically emancipated, then stay at home, don't have babies, and stop looking to Uncle Sugar to bail you out.
Problem solved.
