Sites of Low-Income Housing

Your March 12 editorial, “To Find a Home,” totally missed the mark for those of us who live in neighborhoods of single-family homes in communities such as Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Reseda, Canoga Park, Arleta and Pacoima.

While the editorial describes the need for low-income housing, it neglects to identify where the low-income housing in the San Fernando Valley typically ends up. Historically it ends up in the less affluent communities I mentioned above. Yet communities such as Sherman Oaks, Encino, etc., with much political influence, somehow manage to keep low-income, high-density housing out of their “upscale” [areas].

Is it possible that this scenario could be just one of the many reasons why the less affluent communities will always remain the less affluent and will continue to be burdened with developments that have negative impacts on their residents?

Is there any hope that our elected officials will ever help us to improve our quality of life by giving us more positive developments than they have to date?

Government agencies, developers and elected officials continue to tell us that land and building costs are too expensive for low-income housing to be built in upscale communities. My response to that poor excuse is that there are many government housing subsidies and tax breaks available to developers. But because of greed, developers continue to look for less expensive land to build on, make their fortune and then leave our “not so upscale” communities with yet another quality of life problem.

It’s time for elected officials, developers and the upscale communities to put some balance into these types of development. Let’s have some of the upscale communities share the unfair burden that overcrowding has created in our communities.

DON SCHULTZ

President, Van Nuys

Homeowners Assn.