| In her March 4
column in the Key West Citizen, columnist Regina Corcoran
makes some very interesting observations on the subject of "affordable
housing". |
| |
Re-evaluating
affordable housing
BY REGINA E. CORCORAN Key West Citizen March 4, 2007
Our county is
going to fall apart if we can’t supply affordable
housing
for our work force. Support services, including
firefighters, teachers,
law enforcement officers, and government employees won’t
come here or
stay here.
Post this message on billboards. Run it on all the media
talk shows.
Promote it among voters. The Chamber of Commerce will
offer to canonize
you. Your election campaign will be a landslide victory.
Try this. To live in Monroe County, you need to /want
/to live in the
Keys. It’s not a gift. It’s not for everyone. Living in
the most
desirable spot in the United States requires eagerness.
Arkansas doesn’t.
With statements like that, the public will label you the
devil’s spawn.
Just call me Beelzebub.
I checked the Key West MLS today. There are 59
residences listed for
sale for $400,000 or less. They include cottages at the
Key West Golf
Club, homes and condos, but no mobile homes. The least
expensive is
$329,000.
The average price among these homes is $377,500. To own
one, you only
need three things. You need good credit. It doesn’t have
to be perfect;
it only has to be average. We need to ask ourselves, are
we supplying
affordable housing for those who can’t pay or those who
won’t pay? For
those who think they can’t pay, I have the solution.
Those who have bad credit usually don’t meet their
commitments either.
They will fall short of meeting their obligations in the
work force, too.
Do we need to endorse, encourage and condone
irresponsible behavior
among firefighters, law enforcement personnel, teachers
and the rest of
the workforce by supplying easy housing? Would we rather
entice people
who want to make “paradise” their permanent home? Or do
we want a Disney World staff, who leave after a season?
The potential buyers also need stable employment. To
live in Little
Rock, you only have to get out of bed and go to work
sometimes. You can
rent a two-bedroom house with no credit check (see
above) and no
security deposit for $625.
Those who want to live in the Keys need the maturity to
show up for work
most of the time.
To own a home of your own, the buyers need a combined
monthly income of
$7,200 and no Lexus payments. Buy the Lexus /after /you
buy the house,
not before.
I read a single teacher may have an income of $65,000
and $90,000 for a
couple. That is enough income to qualify for these
homes.
Thanks to the great accomplishments of FIRM regarding
windstorm
insurance, and the property tax benefits for homesteaded
properties,
*the entire monthly payment could be $2,885 or less.*
That is 100
percent financing with fixed rate mortgages.
The owner can always take in a boarder to cut the
housing costs. Many
already have a roommate.
Hardly any cash is required. Anyone who has first
month’s rent, last
month’s rent and a security deposit has enough cash to
buy a house.
For lunch today, I ordered an entree, an appetizer and
iced tea. I left
a $6 tip. The table server said she would probably serve
10 tables
during her shift. Mine had to be among the smallest
tickets.
At $8 per table average, that would come to $480 per
week or $26,840 per
year. Add in the meager hourly wage the server gets and
team up with
another person for the dual household income. That alone
would be enough
to qualify.
In the United States we adore capitalism, not socialism.
So, we don’t
collect all the money in a pot and distribute it on an
as needed basis.
We step up to the plate and make arrangements to pay for
what we want.
Would you consider either changing your attitudes or
changing your
latitudes?
What do you think? |
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