Affordable Senior Homes Are a Must
In “An Economist: Housing and Poverty Are Two Separate Issues” (Valley Perspective, Feb. 18), Shirley Svorny demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the senior housing problem.
In essence, Svorny, a professor of economics at Cal State Northridge, argues that we need to provide economic opportunity and “the housing market will take care of itself.” The professor argues against affordable housing programs that require large-scale developments to provide for some affordable senior housing. She states, “Setting aside space for them makes a tight housing situation tighter.” This statement has no real basis and ignores the impact of the housing crisis on senior citizens.
One does not need a degree in economics to realize that increasing housing costs hurt people on fixed incomes and sometimes drives them into poverty. The problem of housing senior citizens with limited incomes will not be cured by providing them with more job opportunities. Although unemployment rates have been running at record lows, the housing crisis for senior citizens and fixed-income households grows worse. This housing shortage creates particular hardship for seniors on fixed incomes who are forced out of the market by wage earners with increasing incomes. For such people, the cost of housing and poverty are not separate issues.
The argument that building affordable senior housing only makes a tight housing situation tighter is absurd. The amount of affordable housing construction is but a very small fraction of the total number of housing units under construction. The assertion that “public housing programs aimed at the poor cannot make scarce land less scarce” is also not true.
Innovative space utilization and planning can create more quality housing in less space. Affordable senior housing has been built into and above retail projects, offices and other mixed-use developments. Affordable senior housing can be built with little impact to available space for future development, even where land is scarce or expensive.
For example, affordable senior apartments have been constructed by nonprofit organizations in donated air space above public parking garages in Sherman Oaks, West Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. While it is a challenge to create space in urban environments, it has and can be done.
New large-scale residential developments should include housing for seniors. We should not build housing only for the affluent. While we must facilitate the construction of more housing, excluding seniors from our communities is not the way to do it.
Considering that our senior citizens have spent most of their lives working, paying taxes and caring for children who pay taxes, excluding them from our communities for economic reasons is not fair or desirable. Furthermore, there are many caring individuals and companies in the building industry who are committed to providing affordable housing. The real leaders in the building industry recognize that it is good business to support senior housing in their communities.
The “seeding” of worthwhile projects with public and private funds is a good investment in our communities and currently one of the few solutions to the affordable housing crisis.
Funding for large government-built public housing projects dried up years ago. Today, there is a relatively limited amount of government funding for the construction of affordable senior housing. The actual construction of new affordable senior housing has been shifting from government and subsidized for-profit developers to nonprofit groups and faith-based organizations. Due to the scarcity of funding, nonprofit organizations wishing to build affordable housing projects must obtain funding from a number of public and private sources to get their projects off the ground.
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Shifting public assistance from senior housing and totally discarding affordable housing requirements are not solutions to the housing shortage. It is simply unfair and discriminatory to suggest that public funds for senior housing are better spent on education or tax credits for the working poor. Although education and tax relief are important considerations, they should not be used as reasons to deny housing to the elderly. The suggestion that we shift funding from senior housing to education or tax relief is, in essence, asking that we rob Peter to pay Paul.
We should support affordable senior housing because seniors are an asset to our communities. They are part of our diversity and our heritage. By pushing seniors out of our communities for “economic” reasons, we lose more than their involvement in our lives. We lose our humanity.
