Those who have been reading McHenry County Blog for a while know that I publish articles which attempt to show the real cost of public officials call “affordable housing.”
Yesterday Jeanne Ives, on her Sunday “Breakthrough Ideas” email, calculates the real cost for another “affordable housing” ‘project.
| Another news article that requires readers to look past the headline and the content comes from the Chicago Sun-Times (and other news outlets, too): West Englewood’s shuttered Charles Warrington Earle School reopens as affordable housing. The word that stands out in the headline is – of course – Affordable. It’s the political word of the season, and there isn’t a politician on either side who isn’t including the word in every stump speech, mail piece, and conversation with constituents. But affordability is a very subjective term. What is affordable for a millionaire is out of reach for someone making the median income. More importantly, calling something “affordable” when taxpayers are funding the project at an exorbitant cost is the opposite of affordable – it is instead a scam. And that’s exactly what’s going on with this West Englewood “affordable” housing project. Excerpts From the Chicago Sun-Times article: |
| The former Charles Warrington Earle School — one of 50 Chicago schools shuttered in 2013 — is taking on a second life as an affordable apartment building, with roughly a third of its units already leased. Units include one- and two-bedroom apartments available to households making 60% of the area median income, or AMI. For a Chicago couple, that’s a combined annual income of $58,320. Nine units are supported by the nonprofit Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund’s MAUI program, making them available for households at 15% AMI. MAUI stands for Multiyear Affordability through Upfront Investment, and the program offers interest-free forgivable loans to replace up to 50% of a developer’s private first mortgage loan, according to the nonprofit. “This is a working-class development. It is for our working-class neighbors,” Chicago Department of Housing Commissioner Lissette Castañeda said. “The Earle has a community room, computer lab, fitness room, playground, community garden, laundry facilities and green space — amenities that “are not luxuries … [but] what we need to thrive,” Castañeda said. The nearly $35 million project was supported by $4.2 million in tax increment financing and $540,000 in Chicago Recovery Plan Permanent Supportive Housing funds. The Illinois Housing Development Authority, Federal Home Loan Bank’s Affordable Housing Program and ComEd were also among the financial supporters. |
| Well, let’s do some math here. Nearly $35 million (real number is $34.9 million) for 50 apartments. That’s $698,000 per one or two-bedroom apartment. For whom is that “affordable?? Look around your town, and I am certain you can find 50 HOMES that taxpayers could buy for half that cost. We need much more information on these projects, and the Sun-Times and other news outlets should dig in a bit and ask more questions. First and foremost – what other projects could have $35 million be spent on to provide more housing than 50 apartments? There is always an opportunity cost – what were the alternatives in this case? Here again, the media fails to connect the dots for readers – something the writer could do without editorializing. The bottom line is that the media is only telling you the facts they want you to know. Brandon Johnson did not bring affordable housing to residents – he scammed the taxpayers… |
And one of the biggest problems we have in public policy is that the politicians in charge right now –
- don’t ask tough questions,
- don’t demand better value for money spent, and
- only pander for headlines to keep a populace too busy to dig into the numbers, ignorant of the wasteful spending being done with their tax money.
