By Arthur Moore
This is a tough issue; Granted I am not an expert but being a senior and knowing many and talking to them and seeing what is going on in their lives I get a pretty good idea of some of the problems first hand.
First I don’t believe we have such a thing as affordable housing. I have seen lower pricing but nowhere near the range of being actually affordable on most seniors’ incomes, One problem I hear about is seniors selling their home to move to a condo. Many of the new condos do not have much parking. Its sad to learn this after making a big move as now having friends and family visit become a big issue, Some have already had to suck it up and move out and relocate, Some I have been able to warn beforehand. It seems like anything being built here is useless for seniors unless they are hermits Even then senior services have no parking to come and aid them. They were better off in their big houses. Some landlords that can do it are very good to our seniors and they give them a big break Some have family that helps, some just end up being homeless and live on the streets, This is all I have seen firsthand. I have also seen the city many times have a chance to help and blew it. Powder House school should have been one of those to help homeless, sadly it was not. The old Star market since the people of Winter Hill will never get what they want which would be a supermarket could be made into something good. But once again not only do we get something we do not want here it is more useless multiuse buildings. How well did that work on the other corner? I do not know the answer but I have also seen nothing done about this. I have heard the talk for years for affordable housing. I have no expectations any more of seeing that here in Somerviile. We have a supply and demand issue here that will not let that happen. Money comes first is the rule. And remember, the people that have been in office and running for reelection or another office only talk about this at election time and afterwards nothing. KI expect more of the same.
@tony do you believe that other communities should look at somerville and say “yeah, that’s what we want here”?
what urbanists want is an outlet in other communities to support the unsustainable building they’ve been doing. and it should end.
just like boston moving mass and cass homeless people to revere, without revere’s knowledge.
urban areas create the problems that they want everyone else to solve for them. it’s time we say save yourselves, and don’t create the problems in the first place. let the city of boston solve their own problem and not export the contagion. let somerville do the same.
rising home prices will eventually solve themselves when populations realize that they don’t want to live stacked on each other unable to move and move somewhere else.
i’ve never wished for a good 80’s level recession harder in my life.
Senior housing.
collectively the construction costs need to drop;
if the state puts money into affordable housing construction that means that 30 percent of the new units must go to out of towners
everyone cannot fit into the city unless we go Manhattan with huge high rises, no trees, stuffy air, no parking, buildings touching one another due to no open space.
there are many other communities statewide. all of them should be pitching in under 40 B zoning. some communities have lots of land, claim to be very liberal, but have no affordable housing units.