A good idea if you look past campaign ploy
KATHLEEN MERRYMAN; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: October 31st, 2005 03:00 AM
Tacoma’s Proposition 1 is a tough sell.
If you operate outside the universe of housing, poverty and civic issues – and most of us don't – the notion of a new tax to build up a trust fund to create affordable housing sounds sort of squishy. Who’ll get the money? How will the system work? How will it fit into existing programs?
A $32 annual tax increase on a $180,000 home, however, is anything but amorphous.
Proponents have been focusing on how the fund would create affordable housing for people such as entry-level teachers and police officers. That’s an appealing notion. Who would argue with helping new cops and teachers? I would.
I’m guessing that argument’s out there to defuse resistance to scattering low-income housing throughout the city. It’s hard to object to the prospect of cops and teachers living next door.
But that ploy is disingenuous. Cops and teachers have excellent benefits. They have strong unions and, from the beginning, a stable path to a family wage. They start lean, as do most entry-level people with a good education and the debt that goes with it. Still, they have solid prospects. The scare factor of a $400,000 three-bedroom house aside, arguing that we should be taxed to get family-wage folks into home ownership is an odd tactic. Most entry-level folks in decent jobs rent while they save for a house. Fair market rents in Tacoma and Pierce County range from $621 for a one-bedroom to $1,269 for a four-bedroom.
Fronting the issue with teachers and cops is pulling on heartstrings. I’m more interested in the purse. I want to know what Tacomans will get for their $32 a year.
A chunk of Bill and Melinda Gates’ money, for starters, plus foundation grants, state money and a better shot at increasingly elusive federal bucks.
“Usually there are four to 10 funding sources for any project,” said Alice Shobe, director of Sound Families, a Gates Foundation project that funds programs that stabilize homeless and at-risk families.
“Almost every funding source asks if there is local money and local support,” she said. “Usually the local money comes in first and builds the momentum. It is absolutely critical. Money attracts money, so it will help a lot in terms of building. Of the Sound Families money we have allocated, 60 percent has gone to King County, 20 percent to Snohomish and 20 percent to Pierce,” Shobe said. “I would like to see you have more.”
And I would like to see the efficiency that affordable housing brings to the process of getting people out of homelessness.
Guiding and sustaining people through the journey from emergency to transitional housing is expensive. It’s far pricier to be in that system than to be in stable housing. The diciest part of that process is at the end – getting people settled into a home they can afford. If that fails, the family falls back into homelessness – and will likely get back onto the path out of it.
If we can stop that, it’s worth the investment.
Predictably, Nancy Vignec of Tacoma Housing Authority supports Proposition 1. It would add another element to the city’s resources. Considering the uncertain future of federal Section 8 rent subsidies, she thinks that’s crucial. Section 8 gets people into decent housing, for which they pay 30 percent of their income. In Tacoma, the waiting list for one of those vouchers has 4,500 names on it. The wait list for a housing authority rental has more than 1,000 names. Most of those names represent families with kids. Putting one more option into the mix would be a sound move.
We talk big about “investing in our youth.” I would have highlighted that in this campaign, talking about how doubling up with family, living in shelters or unsafe rentals affects a child’s chances of success. Do we want kids to have productive futures? Or kids that will be a drain on social services, law enforcement, courts and prison?
That would not be such a tough sell.
