Affordable housing is an issue with, it seems, very few opponents.
There is m ore to its appeal than pure altruism. First, most of us aren’t rich and we naturally sympathize with those who can’t afford the average house in our high-priced town. Especially when they are our own kids. Naturally, we’d like them to be able to continue to live where they grew up. Naturally, their parents would like to keep them close. ( Full disclosure: I have a 26 year old son and family living in Eastham barely able to pay the rent.)
Part of the push for affordable housing for many of us is the desire for a well-rounded, natural town, and that means a town not emptied out of its youth by the Pied Piper of opportunity and cheaper real estate elsewhere. And there’s the practical side of that, the need for workers to maintain us in the style to which we’ve become accustomed.
In recent years numerous news stories and opinion pieces have appeared in this and other newspapers documenting and lamenting the “youth drain.” There have been summits of local leaders brainstorming how to stop the hemorrhaging of young workers.
Some say more development is the answer, that we should welcome big box stores or franchises that we would otherwise see as hurting the quality of life just because they will produce jobs that might keep some young people here. (Duelling quality-of-life issues.)
And yes, certainly, affordable housing. It seems the least we can do.
Wellfleet, to take the example of this outer Cape town, used to be affordable. That’s why so many of us settled here in the 70s, the last big washing ashore of nonnatives that brought the population from around 1000 in the 30s and 40s to the roughly 3000 of the last 15-20 years. It was naturally affordable in that, although an increasingly favored tourist destination since the late 19th century, the second home market had not yet driven up prices. But it has become ridiculously unaffordable in past couple of decades–also “naturally,” meaning of course market forces, nature in a capitalist system.
Now we need to fight market forces. It’s an uphill battle, going against nature.
The whole flavor of life in this place has changed from the easy-livin’ bygone days. Those of us who bought back in the affordable days, many of whom are now influential in town affairs, keep the town feeling like the loose, politically progressive, artsy place we feel comfortable with. But it’s probably true that we are a generation that would never have made our lives here had Wellfleet been back then what it’s become, price wise. A town this upscale just wouldn’t have been our kind of place.
I was talking with one of that relatively rare breed, a young Wellfleetian, daughter of a resident of several decades. Having sampled other places, she’s desperate to settle down in her hometown. but she doubts, though she has a pretty good job, that she’ll ever be able to afford to do that. “This is such a cool town,” she says. “Other places aren’t like this.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I say; “But you realize that a lot of this cool town wasn’t here until our generation made it. And the real estate prices certainly aren’t cool. Maybe you should think about settling somewhere where the stuff you like doesn’t exist yet so you can create it.” There are .lots of beautiful places in the world waiting to be discovered, I remind her. Places which still have naturally occurring affordable housing.
So, while I will always vote in favor of affordable housing for all of the good reasons, there is that contradiction. As much as we want them to share this place with us, our young people can only have our experience of this place by going to another place.
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