There is a letter carrier food drive this week-end. Thank you mail carriers. The Executive Director of the South Worcester Neighborhood Ctr was on the radio with a letter carrier today promoting the food drive and how rents are so high people have a hard time buying food. Agreed.
At the same time the South Worcester Neighborhood Center is wrapping up Southgate Place with the following rents?
- 1 bedroom 766 to 853 rent 30% to 60% AMI
- 2 bedroom 932 to 1025 rent 30%, 50% and 60% AMI
- 3 bedroom 1,109 to 1,233 50 and 60% AMI
3 comments:
I tuned into to that part way through it and thought to myself .......MMMMMMMMMMM..........the more poverty (perceived or real) that one can drum up the better off certain other people become. I.e. the more poor people you have coming to you for their needs, the more empowered one becomes. Housing....food.....what's next...........cars???
Here's something else that was said on that radio spot.....and I paraphrase and might even be quoting as I cant recall the exact wording ....but here it is to the best of my memory what was siad:
The price of food in the last year has gone up 30% (or 33%?). It now costs $10 to buy what costs $6 a year ago. Sooooo.......OK if it costs $6 a year ago and the prices went up 30%, my public school math says thats $7.80 and not $10.00. This is the same reason ( mathematics) that newly built affordable housing ends up costing between 250,000 to 500,000 per unit and than rents for a $1,000+ per month...yet is still deemed affordable
My underlying point/theme can be summed up in one word 'hyperbole'
And dont anyone tell me I am poor bashing or being negative. There's difference between reality which just happens to have negative themes and negatvity.
Those who advocate for the poor seem to forget that the middle class is also down for the count these last few years.
And now poor me is again being asked to subsidize new contruction in Worcester with a TIF for St Vincents. To the extent St V's pays no RE taxes or less than full value taxes, my RE taxes go up.
In 1995 I was told that Worc MedicAL center was going to be the cataylst for turing downtown around....along with tHE newly opened FASHION oTLETS...to wich I though to myself...who goes to the hospital and then goes out to eat or shopping. But I figured urban planners know more than i do. Now I ask you ....another concrete bunker medical facilty as part of City Sq?
As some of you know who regularly read this blog, I was born in suburban Pittsburgh within sight of downtown. As the steel industry collapsed, the city had to reinvent itself while contending with a dramatic population loss. The city proper now has less than 50% of their high in 1950.
In my eyes, Pittsburgh and Worcester are very similar and face/faced many of the same challenges as the industrial might of the cities declined. Pittsburgh however began to confront their issues much sooner than Worcester with many projects (some big but most on a small scale) contributing to one of the great American urban success stories. With some of the recent positive developments in Worcester, I’m hopeful that the city can be the next great urban success story.
In this article from Monday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it accentuates the positive real estate market in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh paying dividends after a decade of planning and work.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11129/1145226-53-0.stm
Here is an excerpt from the article where I believe Pittsburgh’s approach would be the better approach for Worcester.
“"Our goal is a stable, sustainable mixed-income neighborhood," said Mr. Cunningham. “We want to enhance the ability of the market to accomplish that."
The agency's initial housing focus was to "replace dysfunctional affordable housing with the highest value, best managed affordable housing," said Rob Stephany, executive director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority and a former real estate specialist at ELDI.
Since 2007, the agency has partnered with the URA and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency to build 533 apartments and townhouses for low-income residents and has a waiting list of about 2,000 for the largest development, the Fairfield Apartments between Penn Avenue and East Liberty Boulevard. This has been competition for exploitative landlords, said Mr. Stephany.
"When good, working-class families have good options in front of them, they don't have to take the path of least resistance," he said. "You can't just keep building around nuisance properties. You have to compete with them."”
The article continues with,
““For balance, the agency is working with developers to turn three existing buildings into 234 market-rate apartments. They include the Highland Building and former YMCA, both in the business district.
The neighborhood agency's strategy is atypical. Most community development corporations depend on public money and build homes on spec. The East Liberty group builds for a waiting buyer.
"Rather than going to the URA for money to renovate, I use the market and let the flippers take the risk," said Mr. Jester. "We have legal safeguards that require the flipper to sell to a home owner."”
Where is the balance in the city of Worcester? As Mr. Chernisky pointed out again in last Saturday’s T&G letter to the editor, we need to stop.
http://www.telegram.com/article/20110507/LETTERS/105079985/1055/letters
Worcester needs to stop the low income housing industry (and yes for some in the city, it is a lucrative industry) and adopt the Pittsburgh strategy…yesterday. If you read the Boston Globe piece about the Hanover, it is disturbing to say the least that our Mayor was quoted as follows;
“The US Census Bureau’s estimates for 2005-2009 underscore Worcester’s difficulties; about a quarter of its children live below the poverty line, compared with 12.8 percent statewide.
“We’re poorer than we were a decade ago,’’ O’Brien said by phone, noting that two-thirds of children in Worcester’s public schools qualify for free and reduced-price lunch.”
IMHO, we need to balance our neighborhoods with mixed use options or those figures will continue spiraling out of control.
BILL just an FYI re the blog acting up..... wanted to tell u the home page is showing 4 comments on thsi thread yet I only see 2 when i go to read the comments section
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