Homeowners Stop Rooming House | New Haven Independent

Affordable housing: denied.

We hear the cry “why is there no affordable housing.”  Answer: we made it illegal.

Was this approved or denied?

Later in the evening, Furlow spoke out in support of another zoning relief application in his ward — a proposed suite of lot area, side yard, gross floor area, and building wall height variances designed to legalize an existing fourth apartment built above a garage at a three-family house. “This is exactly the type of thing that we should be developing throughout our city,” Furlow said about the accessory dwelling unit.

[Reporter’s note: Thanks for the comment, sorry about that! I neglected to put the address of the second application in the article. Just updated. The second application, which Alder Furlow did speak in favor of, was for 9 Pardee Pl. That application was approved. The 101 Davis St. rooming house application was denied.]

I’ve lived next to rooming houses. In all cases, they were well-run and considerate neighbors. It sounds like Redd was qualified to administer a safe version of this and was ready to work with the neighborhood on concerns.

But NIMBYs gotta NIMBY. “I’m *all for* affordable housing, but in *this case*.”

“But in this application, I don’t see anything that would line up with the city’s agenda to provide affordable housing.” He said the city should be very careful when “rezoning areas,” and he agreed that the application did not appear to meet the strict legal standards for a variance.
  In general, renting a room is much less expensive than renting an apartment.  It is therefore, more affordable, and allowing rooming houses furthers the city’s goal of increasing affordable housing.  Or is the problem that Redd proposes affordable housing without the massive subsidies and at the outrageous per dwelling costs of the Housing Authority, Beacon, etc.?
Further, if hardship of the land is required, why did the zoner’s allow variances for an an additional dwelling in the garage?  One more dwelling will mean more traffic, etc., just like a rooming house would.  It’s a matter of degree, not principle. Likewise, the concerns about the transiency of roomers are similar to the transiency of renters, who lack the high transaction costs and equity concerns that keep owner-occupiers in place (Degeneres & de Rossi excepted).

TY to the BZA for turning this down. There is no evidence that this property would be supervised any better than any other rooming house. There is one in existence on Elliott St. near Career High and it is a den of filth and trash, drugs and revolving door tenants.
The public testimony was so important in this decision and I for one am thrilled they prevailed. WHEW!!

To the uninformed. This is NOT affordable housing anymore than Sect.8 housing is. Affordable WORKFORCE housing is by definition affordable multi roomed housing for small families who cannot afford the ridiculous market rate rents in New Haven. It is intended as a stepping stone to home ownership. It is for those families who have annual salaries in the high 30’s – the mid 60’s. It is not for single people or those who are defrauding Section 8 housing.

DawnBli, I think you are making my point quite well.  “Affordable” only to the socially correct, deserving people who aren’t really that poor. For everyone else, our zoning laws suggest that the streets can be home. Either 1,000 square feet, or else the highway underpass. It’s the law!

“She also said that a rooming house might have a negative impact on nearby property values because it might make the block a less “desirable place for potential homeowners, for people wanting to invest in the community.”
    Sounds a bit like Woodbridge.

So, for all those who seem to think that “affordable housing” only has good and positive implications, (IMO there are some true negatives), shouldn’t a long-standing, intact neighborhood/town (be it Davis St. or Woodbridge), have a say/concerns about its zoning?

DawnBli: Are you arguing that Section 8 voucher recipients (for which fraud is relatively rare), single people, and unemployed people shouldn’t have access to affordable housing? Or just not in your neighborhood?

Owen:

Nobody is arguing that there are never downsides. Trade-offs are a part of policy. You have to be smart about it. But the process is so imbalanced now that there’s a severe housing crisis, especially for people in poverty.

As it stands, we have an outdated and poorly designed housing process that makes building anything difficult. We also give a near absolute veto to the sorts of neighbors who show up to meetings (who are not particularly representative of the overall residents of the area, by the way). “Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America’s Housing Crisis” is a great read on this.

We’re not saying anybody should be able to build anything anywhere. We’re saying that it’s sad that the process contains so many veto points, and the people with access to that process are not necessarily representative of “the voice of the neighborhood,” and the result is a crisis that we need to find a way out of.

Should a neighborhood have a “say/concern” in zoning?  Yes, opinions should be heard and, as decision-makers set up new rules, they should listen in a truly serious way. But the present system gives neighborhoods veto power. Actually, it gives a tiny number of especially loud neighbors an effective veto. The current system is “shouters rule.”

That’s not democracy, it is a kind of oligarchy, and it has terrible effects on the broader society. People who don’t live in a neighborhood right now, but might in the future, are actual real-life people. We should care about them and not just current property owners.

DawnBli, your comments are wrong on so many points.  I suppose you prefer to have the Section 8 and single folks live on the street or in a homeless shelter rather than seek affordable housing.  I never knew it was only “small families” who are eligible for affordable housing.  Perhaps one day you’ll be in the situation where you need affordable housing, and your only option is a nice cardboard box under a highway bridge.  Happy Holidays and God bless!

On the issue of 9 Pardee Place, I take it the property owner was awarded the variances since they were good people who broke the zoning rules some time ago (perhaps years), and built a second story on their detached garage, probably with no permits, and illegally rented it.  Permits would not have been issued if it dud not comply with zoning laws. This is not an good example of affordable housing, but rather a greedy property owner making a land grab. Alder Furlow and the BZA should be ashamed for supporting and approving something that was built and rented illegally.  This sets a bad precedent, giving a thumbs up to other greedy property owner who’ll build and rent illegally, then when caught, will seek approval for a variance after the fact.  I guess the holidays came early for this owner.

Thanks, DawnBli, for setting all of us ignoramuses straight on the one true definition and intention of affordable housing! To think that all of this time, so many of us were laboring under the naive delusion that families with incomes *as low as* $30,000, or—skies above!—single people should have access to roofs over their heads! I will take what I have learned from you and do my best to educate others.

Very powerful read.This speaks the truth.

Bring Back Flophouses, Rooming Houses, and Microapartments
Dumb urban policies wiped out the best kinds of housing for the poor, young, and single. But they’re finally making a comeback in smart cities.

Most Americans live in houses or apartments that they own or rent. But a century ago, other less expensive choices were just as common: renting space in families’ homes, for example, or living in residential hotels, which once ranged from live-in palace hotels for the business elite to bunkhouses for day laborers. Working-class rooming houses, with small private bedrooms and shared bathrooms down the hall, were particularly numerous, forming the foundation of affordable housing in North American cities. Misguided laws and regulations almost wiped out these other kinds of housing, with disastrous consequences, but now there’s a chance for them to come back, helping those who are young, single, or on the lower rungs of our increasingly unequal society.

Part Two

The zoning commissioners unanimously turned down landlord Nicotra Redd’s application for a use variance to allow for a rooming house at 101 Davis St.City zoning law does not permit rooming, boarding or lodging houses

Why the city’s L&I leader wants more boarding houses in Philadelphia

”Licenses and Inspections Commissioner Dave Perri wants to radically rewrite Philadelphia’s zoning code to make room for smaller, more inexpensive housing units. Specifically, he wan
ts to allow more rooming or boarding housing in residential neighborhoods where this type of informal multifamily dwelling is typically barred, pushing operations into the shadows and making regulation difficult.“We have an affordable housing crisis, but a prohibition against establishing the most inexpensive form of housing in the areas where they are needed most,” said Perri in an interview with PlanPhilly. “The code is out of sync with reality. The question is how can we responsibly put rooming houses back into neighborhoods?”

Having lived in communal households growing up in the city, and having had many of my parents friends living in the same manner, it can be an affordable alternative to have a large, old multiple bedrooms houses used in this way. But rooming houses aren’t a group of people living in the same household in a cooperative manner. The wooden balloon structure of the majority of the city’s homes built before 1950 are also very dangerous and vulnerable to fires. I would prefer hotels or motels with the appropriate fire safety precautions already built in or former businesses or industrial buildings be remodeled safely as single room occupancy hotels, efficiencies and studios with the neighborhoods being more likely to be downtown or in commercial/industrial neighborhoods. A garage conversion to a mini in law accessory home or carriage house isn’t the same as a rooming house, it’s a separate building. As long as fire safety considerations can be met, it shouldn’t be a burden to the neighborhood. The same goes for basement and 3rd floor attic conversions to apartments, as long as safety, egress and fire considerations are met, changing a legal 2 family to a legal 3 family house shouldn’t be a burden the way a rooming house is to the neighborhood. Many older homes have 2 families and 3 family homes right next to each other where in the 2 unit home the 3rd floor was never converted legally to an apartment but easily could be if proper fire safety precautions were met.

@William Kurtz: Your snarkiness is always noted and very seldom appreciated.

Heather writes: “I would prefer hotels or motels with the appropriate fire safety precautions already built in or former businesses or industrial buildings be remodeled safely as single room occupancy hotels, efficiencies and studios with the neighborhoods being more likely to be downtown or in commercial/industrial neighborhoods.”

But the question here isn’t, “From the city’s perspective, what is the best way to provide SROs or comparable arrangements for single people in poverty?” (The city’s answer to this continues to be that it is not a priority).

The question is, “Should we approve this homeowner’s idea for providing SROs on her property?”

Which points to two additional problems: the city (state, etc) doesn’t really have a plan for meeting this need, and (as this meeting and its outcome demonstrates) people who come up with an idea to meet the need are shut down unless they have serious money and scale on their sides.

Affordable Housing Hypocrisy: NIMBY

Just to clarify because not everyone sits through a 4 hour meeting:

The rooming house application was opposed by a very diverse group of residents. This wasn’t nimbyism. Not even close. 

And think of how the economics of a rooming house make housing less affordable: a three bedroom apartment will rent for maybe 1500-1700 on Davis street. Renting a bedroom is probably 650-800. The only person that benefits is the owner.

Alder Furlow is one Alder who is logically consistant in what he supports and what he opposes. Rooming house with possibility of changing the character of the neighborhood adversely and vigorously opposed by diverse neighbors; opposed. One dwelling unit with ambiguous status a few blocks away that is in harmony with the neighborhood and consistant with BOA goals of encouraging accessory dwelling units as low cost alternatives to new construction; supported. No issue there.

This was simply an application that didn’t even come close to meeting the zoning requirements. This was a bad plan by an uninformed applicant. A six bedroom two family house can be rented to six unrelated individuals under our housing code without issue (essentially using it as a “rooming house”). Though you can’t technically rent bedrooms, you can put three unrelated people in a three bedroom apartment on one lease.

A true rooming house has no individual cooking or eating facilities. I don’t think the applicant had any idea about this. But as a property owner it’s her job to learn what uses are available and not to ask for relief that’s not required. Once this is designated a rooming house, it can remain that way in perpetuity subject to re-licensing by the building department. That sucks for neighbors.

Ben Trachten is good at what he does as an attorney and hes definitely someone you want on your side in a zoning issue.  However, he’s just like you and I when it comes to his own neighborhood.  If you don’t want it, there are just too many non-conforming issues here.  That’s not usually a deal breaker for him..

There are people who want to rent a room, not a set of unknown roommates.  I don’t know why we need to invent preferences that we insist other people must have. The person who prefers a room to roommates benefits from the opportunity to do that. If no such person existed, then the rooming house would be empty.

Ben, your argument starts out with “this isn’t nimbyism” and ends with the key point that the neighbors don’t want it and are fully in their rights to stop it because of existing zoning law.  That the definition of NIMBYism.  Maybe the NIMBY position is correct in this case, but it is certainly NIMBY.

Where in New Haven is the affordable housing for single people making minimum wage … which is $12/hr = $24,900 gross annual? Where are the studio/one bedroom apartments for $650-$690 month = $7,800-$8300. The ‘affordable’ standard is no more than 1/3 of your annual income and for single minimum wage earners is $650-690 a month. I have not seen a studio apartment in N
ew Haven that rented for less than $875 let alone a one bedroom! All that you will find in the $600 range are rooms to rent … in a rooming house!!! And the blanket negative and condescending comments about people living in rooming houses or who receive Section 8 are despicable and those that make them should be ashamed!!! I have never received Section 8 but I lived for a time in a rooming house when I was a young single mother who worked full time at a minimum wage job while going to school. I needed to pay for daycare and a rooming house was ALL I could afford. And the house and the other residents were decent, clean, respectful and respectable people who got along well with each other … because that was the standard set by the property owner and the residents. Rooming houses do not make neighborhoods unsafe, undesirable, unattractive or less quiet. I have a resident homeowner next door to me that exhibits ALL that negative behavior very well on her own! I’ve read about complaints of Woodbridge residents not wanting multi-housing units in their communities and thought ‘what snobs’. I guess snobbery is really determined by where you live … it’s more a state of mind. The sentiments by the Westvillagers are pure NIMBYISM … they said it … ‘not in our neighborhood’. Shame on you. Now zoning is another matter.

There was a reason New Haven cleared the rooming houses on Court St by Wooster Square in the 50’s.  If you saw the conditions,  you would know why and there are photos to prove it.

Anyone who thinks a rooming house would be a good neighbor—-  I recommend that you rent out a couple of BR’s in your house and see how it goes.

Under NH’s lax building and zoning depts;  these sites will degenerate into filthy firetraps and life for neighbors will be hell.  Try it before you impose it on others.

I believe the decision is legally correct – the applicant did not meet her burden of showing hardship. As Ben Trachten noted in the hearing, there are viable alternative uses of the property.

The zoning ordinance requires the BZA to consider the “essential character of the area” in granting a variance. But this is a very amorphous term. Across Connecticut, “neighborhood character” has been used to deny developments whose residents’ race or class would differ from those of their neighbors.

Alder Furlow is a thoughtful, conscientious public servant. But I disagree with his statement that rooming houses do not line up with the city’s agenda to provide affordable housing. The private market is not meeting the housing needs of the working poor (much less the unemployed) and the government is not going to dramatically increase housing assistance. A single person working full-time at a minimum wage job can afford a rent of about $600/month. In some cases, sharing an apartment is a possibility. But allowing rooming houses more broadly would expand affordable housing opportunities.

@ Concerned for NH…well now you know. I’m glad you have learned something new today! After spending many agonizing months dealing with city hall employees on the Steering Cmte. that oversaw the Hill to Downtown Dev project we dealt with this issue weekly. I for one poured over documents page by page with no salary..I was not an over paid city employee. I was thrilled to present a viable alternative that garnered approval and increased the number of affordable Apts from 15 to 45. None were studios. All were for working families. That is how you keep a city housed, all the while increasing home ownership and allowing for ppl to realize the Amer dream.
Rooming houses are not a viable solution for the future of this city. They are only a way for a landlord to make money. Tenants don’t contribute to a tax base and are often transient. This is NOT AFFORDABLE housing! It’s just housing. No different than some fleabag motel. Why would we need more of those when we already have them? I don’t care where you put it, it is still no help to working families!

Westville is blessed to be a community absent of drugs and violence. I can see why they wouldn’t want a rooming house in their vicinity..

@Ben Trachten: “And think of how the economics of a rooming house make housing less affordable: a three bedroom apartment will rent for maybe 1500-1700 on Davis street. Renting a bedroom is probably 650-800. The only person that benefits is the owner.”

I think you’re underestimating the degree to which there are hidden costs and risks to sharing a lease with roommates. Furthermore, SROs typically include utilities and insurance in the rent cost, whereas the 3 bedroom apartment you cite will not. In that case, renting a bedroom in an SRO for $650 might very well be more affordable than splitting a $1500 bill will three other people but also having to worry about other expenses that are variable from month to month and the risk of one of the roommates not being timely about paying their share.

@DawnBli: The definition of affordable housing is housing for which the total costs of rent or a mortgage plus utilities is at or below 30{56ef4555b1160ba09e855af6afd9aff20ca1ee0c32187e33609ae0a92f439672} of the household’s gross income. That’s the definition used by government. You seem to have the idea that the term only refers to programs with the goal of eventually making people homeowners. This is only one part of the affordable housing landscape.

Homeownership is one way of building equity, but it is not the only way and it is not an approach without its own risks and downsides. For some people, it actually makes more financial sense to rent even at higher incomes. An anti-renter mindset is not productive here.

SROs might not be an ideal long-term solution for individuals, but they are one tool among many for getting people rooms they can afford.

“Tenants don’t contribute to a tax base.” Renters absolutely contribute to a tax base. In the case of property taxes, it’s just indirect. (Landlords use the rent to pay the taxes). Many renters contribute additionally just as anybody else does through car taxes, etc.

@elmurbanist

A rooming house unit downtown in a legal rooming house, recently renovated, with utilities included (but no amenities) is $1000-$1200. The $650 number was an absolute low-ball. Even if it’s a “break even” between sharing an apartment and a rooming house from the tenants perspective, the transient nature of rooming house occupancy should weigh against sticking them in low and medium density residential neighborhoods. A use variance is a high burden to meet for a rooming house (even more so because the use was poorly described in the application and presentation; I’d guess the applicant didn’t even really want a rooming house because she kept referring to families rentin
g the units which is inconsistant with a rooming house concept). When they post the hearing on the BZA HUBSITE I encourage everyone to watch it in full.

@kevin McCarthy there is no housing that is affordable to minimum wage earners absent some kind of subsidy. Where rents of $600 are being offered, I wouldn’t put my worst enemy in such a unit. And, clearly, this wasn’t a race or class opposition group (except me).

@missingthenighthawks I’d say my biggest concern was for the precedent of granting something like this. I live many blocks away (but still westville) and I did oppose it but I love the idea of rooming houses in industrial zones that border residential areas and in many of our business type zones. In my comments I did say that a rooming house is such a disfavored type of housing that it’s only allowed as of right in 2 of the 13 commercial/industrial zones in NH and by special permit to city plan in one zone. On the residential side, only in the most dense RH-2 zone. This makes sense and there are many buildings that could be converted to affordable (little “a”) rooming houses/SRO units if the regulations changed to allow them in the Light Industrial zone in particular. IL often borders medium density residential zones with big streets as buffers (and for public transit).

Challenge-  Westville absolutely has drugs and violence in it, if you aren’t aware of it, then you don’t know Westville. Not all of Westville is wealthy, upper middle class or middle class.  There has been an increase in violence and drug activity on the West side of town, as there has been through the rest of the city, and indeed, throughout the USA. The concern with rooming houses is safety for the renters as much as it is concern for the safety of the neighborhood. If the landlord wants to live with roommates to help make ends meet, that is a different set up from rooming houses. It’s a lot of picky little details that make the difference, but the difference makes a real impact on the situation for everyone it impacts. The solution to affordable housing isn’t rooming houses. I knew multiple people who lived in the SRO hotel Duncan, and also little efficiency apartments on York St and High St and other streets downtown that I believe have since been converted to condos or regular apartments. The people who lived there were single people working minimum wage jobs and were young as well as old. We need not only affordable apartments for families, we need affordable apartments for singles and couples without children that are affordable for our minimum wage essential workers. The city should encourage building developments with multiple units of efficiency/studio apartments that would have a bathroom, combo sink/mini fridge/2 burner stovetop kitchenette, and a combo bedroom/living space with a closet that includes heat and water but separate electric utilities. If the units rents were kept at 30{56ef4555b1160ba09e855af6afd9aff20ca1ee0c32187e33609ae0a92f439672} of a minimum wage full time job income, then that would help provide housing for the essential workers, young people just starting out in life, and elderly with limited fixed incomes. Allowing garage conversions, attic, basement conversions, non-confirming lot mini houses, all built with the proper safety considerations, will increase the number of units at lower rates.

@Ben Trachten: I appreciate your clarifications on what happened during the hearing. I will watch it when it’s available. From what you’re saying, it does sound like Redd hadn’t thought this through fully.

The general points that I and others have made above still have merit, as it sounds like lots of the rhetoric at the meeting *was* NIMBYist. From a housing advocate’s position, sometimes it’s difficult to separate the persuasiveness of NIMBYism and the way in which it resorts to all sorts of technical objections and actual problems with proposed developments. This dynamic itself suggests the need for all sorts of reforms and changes in mindset. I think we can agree on that. (I would press you on your use of the rhetoric about “the fundamental fabric of the neighborhood.” Language like this operates in many cases for ugly NIMBYist reasons, even if I’m sure you didn’t intend it to sound that way).

I still disagree on your point that SROs are bad for affordability. Where are you getting the $1000-$1200 figure from? That seems high. There are newly-renovated SRO units in NYC that go for that (heck, there are old-but-comfortable full one-bedrooms in downtown New Haven that go for that), and New Haven is expensive but not NYC expensive.

I think we’re going to disagree here, but I appreciate that you’re willing to engage.

Heather, I know Westville very well. I was being facetious. The language about the “fabric of the community” and how having a rooming house will introduce drugs and violence into the community brought it on. I can see concern for MORE drugs and violence but please let’s not act as though Westville is drug and violence free. I also feel shifting an apartment into a rooming house is more about greed than providing affordable housing.

@elmurbanist

There is a difference between legitimate/thoughtful opposition and NIMBY opposition.  I associate nimbyism with myopic middle class owners opposing a particular use; something that represents a small change to normal people but is “played up” to the point of being a life altering disruption if approved. People often threaten to sell if the use gets approved. Or swear that the approval would be the end of the neighborhood.

That wasn’t the case here. These neighbors had real concerns and the application didn’t come close to meeting the legal standard for the relief. 

There is so much deep thinking (in the NHI comments section) about housing but when will it get turned into good policy?

I see long-term per unit tax freezes as the ”gap closer” of last resort being approved by the BOA. Im not sure if that’s sustainable, good policy, or if it’s enough to actually get units built. The future will tell.

To me, we can only build our way out of this. The more new units we add of any type the more likely we are to make headway. Luxury units will not be luxury units forever.

And we need to reconsider the 30 percent affordability standard and come to terms with a new reality of it being ok to be somewhat “housing burdened”. I lived through it and came out the other end far smarter for having gone through it (and I should have known better).

Yes, it’s hard, but if you never struggle financially you don’t learn to make better choices. 2008 decimated many homeowners who were strapped with no equity and unsustainable situations. But it was a great learning lesson and many have fully recovered now.

I hear these arguments by this younger cohort that affordable housing is a right. Sure, I get it. It sounds good. But to make it reality you are depriving the recipients of an opportunity to learn to make solid choices about what’s likely to be the biggest item of expense in their lives forever: housing. That’s a waste.

Disappointed in you Ben, NIMBYism knows no class.  Even folks in poor neighborhoods oppose many of the zoning requests that come before the Board – like at risk youth centers and hostels, bars, homeless shelters, halfway houses, and even rooming houses.
However, I agree with your thoughts on affordable housing.  Take Woodbridge for example.  Most of those people worked long and hard, kept involved in furthering their education, and sacrificed along the way.  Many took chances that others eschew.  Then, later in life, moved to Woodbridge for a more peaceful life away from traffic, crowds, and crime.  Affordable housing in Woodbridge is like the express elevator in life when everyone else took the stairs.  Linwood Lacy of Woody’s Wings (an article posted a few days ago) is on the stairs right now.

@missthenighthawks: I believe people in poor communities are not saying “we don’t want this in our community”. What I hear them saying is “we don’t want ALL these programs set up in our community especially when many who come into the city to utilize them live in suburbs like Woodbridge.  I agree poor communities should not be a septic pool for all of society’s ills.

“And we need to reconsider the 30 percent affordability standard and come to terms with a new reality of it being ok to be somewhat “housing burdened’ . . . Yes, it’s hard, but if you never struggle financially you don’t learn to make better choices. 2008 decimated many homeowners who were strapped with no equity and unsustainable situations. But it was a great learning lesson.”“

Wow.

“Take Woodbridge for example.  Most of those people worked long and hard, kept involved in furthering their education, and sacrificed along the way.  Many took chances that others eschew.  Then, later in life, moved to Woodbridge for a more peaceful life away from traffic, crowds, and crime.  Affordable housing in Woodbridge is like the express elevator in life when everyone else took the stairs.”

Yeah, that’s exactly how everyone got big houses in Woodbridge.

@Ben Trachten: That is a very limited definition of NIMBYism. I’d be interested on your thoughts on the “Neighborhood Defenders” studies. In any case, I think we both agree that we need to build out of the crisis. We need lots more “luxury” units (which seems to be the label they give to all new market rate units nowadays), we need lots more affordable units, and we need to use lots of tools to get there. In some cases, folks are going to have to get used to “the fabric of the neighborhood” as they understand it changing so that we can increase housing stock. (Even if we exclude SROs from the discussion entirely—I haven’t watched the video yet, but at this point if your account is accurate, I agree that denying this particular request was probably the right decision. We do probably disagree in that I can imagine circumstances in which an SRO proposal would have have credible).

I would suggest that your personal experience with the over-30{56ef4555b1160ba09e855af6afd9aff20ca1ee0c32187e33609ae0a92f439672} burden working out just fine can’t be generalized to all people. The 30{56ef4555b1160ba09e855af6afd9aff20ca1ee0c32187e33609ae0a92f439672} standard wasn’t formulated with attorneys or future attorneys in mind (although it is decent budgeting advice if one has a choice), but people living near the poverty line who don’t necessarily have many choices and therefore aren’t necessarily making any mistakes they can learn from. I too have been technically “housing burdened” at certain points, and in retrospect I would have made different choices at these points, but I was healthy and young and had a college degree that opened doors for me. That is, I actually had a choice. Many do not.

There are plenty of people who did everything right with the information they had but suffered setbacks from the 2008 crisis and have not since recovered. Not everyone has a long time horizon, and not everyone has backup options.

I’m likely to put forward a proposal for +-200 units of SRO rooming house units where luxury units were previously approved in an IL zone. Let’s see how that’s received!!! I really like the rooming house concept where there is no “neighborhood” to be negatively impacted (like where a bridge and a long walk separates the nearest “residential” area).

The people I have dealt with that have the strongest opinions about affordable housing in elected city government essentially say: I like my (union) job. I shouldn’t have to work more hours. I don’t want a second job. I don’t want to give up my work-life balance. But I want to stay/live in (choose one) east rock/Wooster square/westville with a big-ass two/three bedroom for $1500. And they expect developers/landlords to make that happen and absorb the cost to subsidize their existence; in perpetuity. I just think the onus should be on the individual to increase his/her value/skills/offering over time and earn more to afford more. Or move. Neighborhoods change.

Neighborhoods have identities; some are richer than others. Wealth and resources do allow the haves to exclude others. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. If we don’t have neighborhood stratification people will only be able to decamp to Woodbridge or Madison and there will be no upper middle class enclaves.

These are complicated fraught discussions and I’m just going to put my foot in my mouth again so I’ll stop here. Let’s get back to work to make New Haven even better.

Glad we can have a civilized discussion. I respect all opinions grounded in reason and not emotional pleas..