Posted on 03/24/2016 5:17:56 AM PDT by Lockbox
People earning $250,000-a-year should qualify for subsidized housing in Palo Alto, according to a new proposal.
City officials have outlined an eight-year affordable housing plan - with 587 units for reserved for the area's uniquely wealthy middle class as real estate prices balloon.
The well-heeled California neighborhood, where a plot of land recently sold for $2.7 million, is home to some of Americas richest entrepreneurs who work a few miles away in Silicon Valley.
With house price averages an eye-watering $3 million, even those earning $250,000-a-year are spending two-thirds of their monthly salary (around $14,000) paying off their mortgage.
It means workers such as teachers, janitors, firefighters, social workers, police officers and more are not paid enough to afford the local rent, driving up congestion as they commute in.
Now the City Of Palo Alto has outlined a proposal to combat the issue - with price guidelines unlike any other in the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
After all the teachers, janitors, firefighters, social workers, police officers should be able to have a livable wage at $500,000 per year!
Gentry liberals are opposed to building more apartments, condos and other forms of high density housing. Look for Palo Alto’s severe housing crisis to get even worse.
A housing subsidy is a stop-gap, not a true solution. Until more affordable housing is built, Palto Alto will remain known as the city of spanking expensive homes almost no one can afford to buy, let alone to reside in.
And its hardly unique to Silicon Valley.
The government NEVER had any business taking money from one group and subsidizing the behavior of another; this is the end result— money will now be taken from those who are struggling to make ends meet to allow those in the top 0.5% income to live in an extravagant neighborhood closer to work. Much like money taken from those who do all the right things that is taken to support a bloated bureaucracy to re-distribute wealth to those who make poor decisions— e.g. having children they can’t afford, living in flood/tornado zones without sufficient insurance, drug/alcohol use that leads to chronic health problems, etc..
Yup, super liberal places like Palo Alto are also the most expensive to live in because of severe building and zoning codes. But then if you’d just paid $3 million for a three bedroom Palo Alto tract house, would you want a five story apartment building filled with low-income families next door?
I really do wonder how much the utter screwed-uppedness of the housing and labor markets out there, coupled with their drought and water shortages, is leading to all the really disastrous policy pronouncements coming out of the donor base there and piping through our politicians here, where we just scratch our heads and figure the elites have lost their minds. “Open borders” policies, economics geared toward boom/bust (in short bubbles), enviro-whacko everything...?
Can’t they just move?
The Government is so wise!
Exactly.
The new nobility doesn’t want to look at or down on the unwashed masses.
They care about working class and poor Americans - as long as they can feel morally superior to them.
".....and I got to keep my 6 odungofoams and my $3000 mont EBT card as soon as I vote for Hilry
Who? The whack-a-doodle elites out there? You would think.
Did she bring gum for everyone?
"...git your ohm"
LOL... ABC
Probably indexed, if he had any brains left. He was in the higher risk percentile for AIDS, iirc.
I really don't care if people cannot afford the mortgages associated with living in this overly inflated California housing bubble by Silicon Valley. If they don't make enough for their mortgage, it is not up to the taxpayers to subsidize them. Let them telecommute or commute 40 or more miles a day from a home they can afford, if that's their choice. Bottom line is that this robbing Peter to subsidize Paul is WRONG on all levels. It is not government's job to fund the equivalent of Section 8 housing for middle and upper middle class people.
Maybe Palo Alto could use what I call the George Clooney Program. Basically the rich have large homes with many empty bedrooms. So let's fill up those empty bedrooms George! Solves the problem.
The subsequent Cambridge mayors after Reeves are even nuttier. Davis came from NPR and tried to outlaw soda and automobiles. Simmons is back in as mayor replacing another nut Maher.
-PJ
In 1969 places like San Jose were small, back-water towns with some inherent friendly charm. My last trip to San Jose in 2013 revealed a brassy, nasty, car-choked mess populated by angry people. The state's decline under the yoke of pomegranate (1) dot com billionaires has been astounding.
(1) red on the outside, gold on the inside
What a beautiful state and what a mess.....
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