The Waukesha County Affordable Housing Taskforce is making waves, and people are starting to notice! We were mentioned in the Sunday edition of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel! It is a thoughtful article about the disparity of employment and housing in the suburbs, so go take a look!
On the flip side of the coin, there's Dan Miller from the Heartland Institute in Chicago decrying Smart Growth (interesting, isn't it, how an editorial about affordable housing devolves into guns misfiring at Smart Growth?). Leaving aside our opinions on Smart Growth, the article contains some misleading "facts" that I immediately spotted. Check it out here and post your comments!
UPDATE: Links fixed!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
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My letter regarding this article made it into the Journal Sentinel the following Friday; here it is.
The MJS understands the need for workforce/affordable housing near jobs - March 15 Crossroads – Good enough to work in but too poor to live in?. For decades only housing and civil rights advocates worked to draw attention to segregation and the moral implications of ignoring the housing needs of low income and communities of color. Now that MJS, Metropolitan Builders Association and several employers are on record regarding the economic implications of ignoring this need, perhaps suburban communities will take notice.
If not, will our communities become the next Westchester County, NY? Recently a Federal Court found that Westchester County falsely claimed that it was meeting its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing and is now facing potential liability in excess of $150 million. Additionally, in Westchester County over half of the municipalities in the Consortium had African-American populations of 3% or less; in Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington Counties, the African American population does not exceed 1%!
Ideally, communities that have been shirking their workforce housing obligations will see the light and begin to turn the negative trend around. The carrot is so much nicer than the stick.
Kori Schneider-Peragine
Senior Administrator, Community and Economic Development Program
Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council
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