July 25, 2019      letters + opinion » mailbox

Affordable Housing ‘Outside the Box’ 

Editor:

The inclusion of two seemingly unconnected articles in the July 18 North
Coast Journal invites comment. In “Apollo Plus Fifty” Barry
Evans recounts how when the moon landing project was started, “virtually
everything that made it all possible didn’t exist.” No one knew what it
would take to put a man on the moon. The equivalent of $112 billion was spent
on a vast undertaking of unforeseen challenges.

Then, in the article “Outside the Box,” we learn that the Humboldt County
Planning Department intends to seek voter approval for the county to start a
new operation to “build or acquire low-rent multi-family units without the
need to turn a profit.”

To doubters who believe that the government has no place building or owning
housing units, we can point out that the government is already in the housing
market. In addition to known subsidized housing, we have college dormitory
units, which house many of the country’s 2 million incoming freshmen, and
military barracks, which supply housing for more than 1 million men and women
in uniform in the U.S. Locally, Humboldt State University houses about 2,100
new and transferring students.

In Austria, 62 percent of the general population of Vienna live in
government-owned housing. Starting in the 1870s, their government made the
decision to get involved in the housing market. Rents today in Vienna are
one-quarter those of other major cities around the world. Because ordinary
people spend less of their income on rent, every citizen of Vienna benefits
from a richer society.

Providing housing for working-class people does not involve rocket science. Major
technological breakthroughs aren’t required to create low-income housing. It is
a matter of national will.

If it were considered important, it would get done.

Fred Weis, Arcata