Perspectives
Index
Perspectives
on
Housing
A White Paper
on Affordable Housing,
by Thomas N. George
page last updated September 09, 2005
Perspectives
on
Housing
Is the number of available and affordable homes
sufficient to meet the needs of our community? The answer depends on
whom you ask. Some people fear that building more homes will
compromise the community's
way of life. Other people applaud
new-home building because they feel it will attract talented
people and their young families to the community.
Some
people fear that increasing the number of affordable
homes will attract homeless people from distant communities.
Others fear that without more affordable homes, more people in our
community will become homeless.
The Larson Report is pleased to publish "A
White Paper on Affordable Housing" by Thomas N. George,
formerly Massachusetts State Representative, First Barnstable District. We
encourage you to send us your reaction to this article (larson50@comcast.net).
We will publish as many responses as we can.
In addition, readers may want to read Edward Glaeser and
Joseph Gyourko's "Zoning's
Steep Price," published by the Cato Institute and available in
pdf format over the Internet.
Sustainability and land-use issues share a berth with affordable
housing issues. In the belief that good design is the answer to
everyone's concerns, site planners and landscape architects are at the
forefront of the movement to apply principles of sustainability to the
design and building of affordable housing.
The Pioneer Valley
Planning Commission (PVPC) has been making substantial headway in meeting the
multifaceted objectives that need to be addressed in community
development. Also, the Lincoln
Institute of Land Policy based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a
wellspring of information on community planning and development, zoning
regulations, and affordable housing.
The Housing
Assistance Corporation, serving Barnstable, Massachusetts, has the
most up-to-date statistics on homelessness in the area. It is at the
center of the people expressing a need for more housing and the people
expressing a fear of more housing.
The
following organizations can provide excellent resources and up-to-date
information on this important issue:
- Citizens' Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA)
- Fannie Mae in Massachusetts
- Habitat for Humanity in Massachusetts
- Housing Land Trust for Cape Cod
- HUD in Massachusetts
- Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA)
- Massachusetts Affordable Housing Trust Fund (MAHTF)
- Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless (MCH)
- Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP)
- MassHousing, the state's affordable housing bank
The Larson Report would like to know what our readers' thoughts are on the subject of affordable housing. Is it a true issue or a nonissue? What does the community stand to gain or lose from the various community planning initiatives afoot? Send us your ideas (larson50@comcast.net), and we will publish as many as we can.
Go to "A White Paper
on Affordable Housing,"
by Thomas N. George"