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Editorial: At the rate we're going, 'low income' could be our kids
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We want to dispel the misconception that affordable housing is equivalent to public housing "projects" but first we ask this: when did Huntington folks become so unfriendly to the poor?
While it seems our school and community organizations have the right idea in fundraising and donating on behalf of the homeless and disadvantaged at home and abroad, we cringe at the way some people publicly and privately denigrate "low-income" families and renters as if they are the dregs of the earth. More often than not, both groups are struggling, as rental rates continue to rise faster than their incomes and saving for homeownership drifts further out of reach. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo states in his 2010 report "Rental Housing Assistance-The Worsening Crisis" that suburban families face the worst housing market pressures in the state.
It baffles us even more to hear lambasting of developers who want to offer affordable housing to people occupied in middle-class professions.
The U.S. HUD states that affordable housing sets income limits to serve those who would otherwise be spending more than 30 percent of annual income on housing. As of April 2009, a family of four looking to buy a home in Matinecock Court is eligible if they earn at most $81,450, or 80 percent of $101,800 (the median income of Nassau and Suffolk homeowners).
If most local families are double-income earning, we're talking about parents who are teachers, cops and firefighters in NYC or established social workers, administrative assistants and highway laborers on the Island. Such hard-working people are the backbone of America.
Do we really want to shoo them from Huntington?
Illegal housing is unacceptable but that's not what we're dealing with in rentals offered by Matinecock Court, East Northport or AvalonBay, Huntington Station. The fewer such options we have, the more we can count on flying to the Carolinas or Midwest several times a year. That's where we'll be visiting our grandchildren.
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