Prop. 1: Cast a vote for affordable housing
THE NEWS TRIBUNE Published: October 24th, 2005
Families need homes. That’s the fundamental imperative behind Proposition 1, the affordable housing measure on the November ballot in Tacoma.
Proposition 1 would create a Housing Trust Fund by imposing, for six years, a property tax of 18 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. That would translate into $32.40 a year on a property worth $180,000 – the current average home value in Tacoma.
That $180,000 figure itself sums up much of the argument for a public investment in affordable housing.
In recent years, housing prices – for both renters and purchasers – have far outstripped increases in wages in the South Sound. But the many Tacomans who are below or close to the poverty line were already struggling before the city’s real estate market surged.
Only 45 percent of Tacoma households own their homes, compared to 67 percent nationwide. Of the 55 percent who rent, fewer than half can afford a basic two-bedroom apartment without cutting back on such necessities as groceries, medical care or heat.
A variety of nonprofit organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity and the Homeownership Center of Tacoma, have been attacking this problem by building homes for the poor. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has helped greatly over the years – for example, by renovating the Salishan housing project on the East Side.
But federal housing assistance is getting harder to come by, and nonprofits can only do so much. By raising $15 million – $2.5 million a year for six years – for the Housing Trust Fund, Proposition 1 would let the city build or rehabilitate approximately 740 housing units. Two-thirds of these units would be rentals; one third would be sold to eligible low-income Tacomans.
This would be an investment in a better Tacoma – a Tacoma with fewer sharp edges for the poor.
Without decent, secure housing, struggling parents live in constant anxiety, and their children have no stable home life. The dire consequences of instability multiply as those children grow older, often failing in school and becoming part of the city’s dropout, poverty and crime statistics.
Proposition 1 would not solve the problem of affordable housing in Tacoma, but it would make a significant dent in it. The cost, for the average homeowner, would be a mere 9 cents a day for six years. Considering the difference it would make in the lives of many hundreds of Tacomans, we think that’s a bargain.
