Re: affordability loans
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 08:38:01 -0600 (MDT)
on 10/6/2002 3:02 AM, Tree Bressen at tree [at] ic.org wrote:

>>> Has getting some outside financing to help make
>>> some units more affordable made it possible to drawn in more individuals
>>> or families of color?
> 
Sharon wrote:
>> I purposely removed the attribution from this quote. I know it was
>> unintentional but to link affordability with skin color is a racist
>> assumption.
>
Tree wrote: 
> Another way to interpret the remark would be as an acknowledgement that
> racism which has been institutionalized in the US for centuries has
> resulted in economic differences.  Links between ethnicity and wealth as
> well as income are well documented.  I think acknowledging those
> differences can be an important step to making changes.  If a cohousing
> group says it wants people of color involved but isn't willing to make
> affordability a priority, that may act as an invisible barrier.

In large cohort groups, this is certainly true, although much less true in
many areas of the country than most people are aware of. The latest figures
show that Hispanics are the most impoverished ethnic group and many people
do not include them in the "people of color" category.

But when looking at attracting individual families, affordability will
attract more families of European descent than of African or Asian or
Spanish, because there are many more of them.

Another lister asked a similar question off list and inquired about Takoma
Village. We have housing that originally ranged from $90,000 to close to
$300,000 and were covered by a DC bond program that allowed individual home
owners to buy their homes without a down payment, at a below market interest
rate. The annual incomes of several households is at or below $25,000.

While one of my positions in the issue of race is that we don't really know
who is of non-European descent, I do know who believes they are. (I have a
running joke with one person who asserts regularly that she is discriminated
against because she is "black." She would not be picked out of a crowd as of
African descent. But she identifies "black" and was raised in a "black"
family.)

We have 4 of 43 households with African descent owners and one household
with Hispanic descent owners. In addition there are 5 children fully or
partly of non-European descent in the community (soon to be six) and at
least four additional households whose immediate families include members
who are of non-European descent but do not live here. Another 5 of
non-European descent who come and go in the community often. I'm never sure
whether to include them as residents or not but they are coming to feel like
residents.

There is absolutely no relationship between affordability and "color" in our
community, in fact, it is probably a negative relationship. I'm don't know
how to do all the calculations.

None of these families knew each other before move-in. We didn't attract a
cluster of non-European descent families. They all come from very different
parts of the Diaspora.

A bigger determiner of the ability to attract people of color is their
presence in the immediate community and _their_ interest in living in a
community of predominantly European-descent households. We are located in a
city. People in urban areas are more accustomed to being in communities of
mixed heritage--one reason they live in the city in the first place.

Figure out the statistics in the neighborhood _where the land is located_
and determine your statistical chance of attracting a household of
non-European descent. If it is only one household (and usually it much less
than that), that isolates the one household. If they are _both_ the only
household of non-European descent and the only one in affordable housing,
how comfortable do you think they would be living in your community?

When you look at all the factors that need to be considered in building
mixed heritage communities, the issue is _not_ affordability. If you build a
community of all affordable housing, it is still likely to be
European-descent households unless it is located in the middle of a
predominantly non-European descent neighborhood and is advertised in that
community.

The reality of real estate is that the most important factors are location,
location, location whether it is cohousing or brothels.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org


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