March 17, 2009

Blog Change

As sick as people may be of reading my rants on low income housing, so am I. Only hope that some of these blogs sink in and people really start to ask questions next time they hear the buzz words:
  • "affordable housing"
  • "low to mod income housing"

Maybe, just maybe people will not just blindly accept these projects, but I doubt it.

As Gabe commented in an earlier blog this week, "I think once it is low income housing it may be low income housing forever, I don't think there is any going back." Gabe, I fear you could not be more right.

14 comments:

Sprout said...

Not sick of the subject at all! Just discouraged by Worcester's prospects...

Bill Randell said...

Sprout:

Me too. To be honest the more I actually looked into it and started actually mapping it out. The more discouraged I became as well.

Can you imagine someone running for city council saying that he or she was against any future low income housing developments? And that they wanted to give whatever breaks and help we could provide for a developer that wants to build high end housing.

Bill

Paulie's Point of View said...

...the city is drunk over City Square...a project that hasn't even happened....perhaps Berkeley could turn it into a no-lo?? Then we could have every Dollar Store out there open up shop downtown.

A No-Lo Boom!

Paulie's Point of View said...

Folks are reading regardless of what we are hearing..Joe Petty made a comment last night at the weekly CC meeting about naysayers regarding Congressman McGovern money coming in for no-lo......
We have to keep it up in the urban core..folks are reading and listening...

Ending this is not going to happen over night...

Paulie's Point of View said...

one would think that more would be wondering why we have so few majors stores in this city other than around the perimeter....you have to go to Auburn Mall, Rt. 9 Shrewsbury/WooTown & Lincoln Square to get a book...find a Staples...this is because the draw is from the bordering communities

I know it is a mantra in this city for local business..but this mantra is in every community..it is necessary for certain services to be available for a community to be attractive

We keep loading up this city with folks who have no money and even the border stores may have to close up...losing the piano store was just another signal and yet it is pooh poohed in this city.

"Everything is okay" has become the new city slogan

Rich Greenhalgh said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rich Greenhalgh said...

Sent an email on this very subject to my District Councilor as well as a highly popular At Large Councilor over a week ago and referenced this blog….still waiting for a response. Any guesses on the over and under on the time it takes to get one?

Paulie's Point of View said...

The City Fadahs & Muddahs are not used to folks in the urban core voting..speaking up loudly about this stuff..there should be no surprise

I frame it like I do in person..I expect the same neighborhood that others have in other great urban communities and the west side of WooTown..I make no bones about it..

Just yeserday, I again sent yet another plea to the City to clean up 8-10 Winfield & 224 Chandler....I reckon this is my 458 such request over he past 10 years..yes 10 years NOT 10 days

Anonymous said...

I think low income housing is a solution in search of a problem.

Are there any statistics available to show that there is actually a need for more low income housing? What is the occupancy rate for the existing low-income housing? I thought there were already a bunch of empty units around.

Anonymous said...

Steve, I think a better way to frame your comment is to say that low income housing constr is a bunch of hacks who are otherwise unemployable in search of our tax dollars to fund their continued employment.

Just look at the people who head up these non profit building companies. What qualifications do any of them have to be running a constr/rental company, other than their political resume?

ANother issue is that we have far too many non profit builders here in Worc. If they weren't sucking up our tax dollars to stay alive many of these would have fallen by the wayside for lack of work if they were private companies.

I lay most of the blame on Havana Jim McGovern, as Carr likes to call him. End the Washington money and that's the end of NO LO constr in Worc. Unfortunately he will be re-elected b/c the Education Assn of Worc likes all this NO LO constr which brings more students into the city.

Paulie re-iterates a point I have made time & again.. i.e. why we have no stores in Worc........well it's b/c the Pajama People demographic doesnt exactly have any discretionary disposable income.......if any income at all...but if we raise the deposit on cans from 5 to 10 cents, maybe then they will have discretionary disposable income.

Paulie's Point of View said...

it's a population boostah for the city thus the continued flow of fed dollars and a congressional seat......look at the hoo-hah that we heard from the City Clerk's office when the census came out....I remember Mayor Lukes commenting about the census at a CC meeting months before it came out and she remarked that we would be surprised (I was not)about what it would point out.

Paulie's Point of View said...

WooTown has been unable to adjust to a changing World..it is still living with the memory of it being a manufacuring giant within the region....if it was to lose it's no-lo population it would lose mucho fed and state dollars as well as possibly a congressional seat..there has been talk for awhile that Mass may lose one congressional seat....because of a declining population...I believe Western & Central Mass would be where it is lost.

Anonymous said...

Rich

NO WAY will they respond... I say we get a large group headed by Wild Will of course with a map and go into council and speak our minds on this. Like I have stated many times not one of them really have a vested interest in this area so we will continue getting LIH because the councilor in our area is for it. If we did come in as a group though it would be like when the group went it for one tax rate. They went to the council with a dozen business people and were told ahead of time that only one would be able to speak. She told them that they were all coming individually so they should be able to. THEY DON”T listen they don’t even pay attention to their own report that they paid for… They just pick out certain parts to their liking. We need a newspaper that will print and push the buttons on this.... We won't though

Paulie's Point of View said...

it is a legitimate concern Sprout...if one urban community could be pointed to that shared/shares the path that this city is following that was propsering..one could step back a wee bit...but it doesn't exist and we have far to many leading us that have little or no urban renewal experience..do not live, run a business, have children attending urban schools or own any real property in the urban core.

The Urban cores lack of strong leadership is killing it!