Editor: What is “safe” and “affordable” housing? Does the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments know? The authors of the Metropolitan Washington Regional Fair Housing Plan Draft Executive Summary dated January 2023 clearly don’t. If they did, they would have included definitions for both in this summary.Â
That begs the question, why didn’t they? An organization that is so enthusiastic about defining the word “equity” to mean something different than what is in the Merriam-Webster dictionary should have invested the same rigor and gusto into defining “safe” and “affordable” in 29 pages that they did calling everyone who isn’t African American a racist. These 29 pages do nothing to inform the reader of actual root causes and are intended to pollute your mind with sleight of hand and parlor tricks to push an agenda. You are a racist if you don’t agree with their premises.Â
Bollocks and Balderdash!
Dwellings, be it apartments, multi or single-family homes are not safe based on race. They are safe based on craftsmanship, building materials, county codes, inspections and whether the county attorney’s office prosecutes criminals who terrorize criminals in high crime neighborhoods or lets them out with a slap on the wrist. They are also safe based on whether a federal Department of Justice and Homeland Security actually stop the flow of illegal aliens into our country.Â
I have lived in many parts of Fairfax and Loudoun County. Rent in this area has gone up, so have the costs of buying a home. The cause of this is supply and demand. When you flood a market with more people than products, costs go up. When you flood a market with more people, crime goes up. When you let people who commit crimes off, and tell cops not to chase criminals, more crimes happen. This didn’t require a report from MWCOG to figure out.Â
The real purpose of this report is to exert more government over you and your life. To create a non-existent problem out of thin air. To take more of your income based on a fake problem that requires more tax revenue to fix. Loudoun doesn’t have a NIMBY issue, Loudoun has a progressive board majority that is actively marching us toward a big government and control end state that no one should want. The last time the government said something was good for you killed a boat load of people and retarded the growth of your school kids by sticking them at home for almost two years.Â
Nothing in this report should be adopted by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. It’s full of false statements and built on false pretenses, and it’s so obvious a fifth grader can see it.Â
Christopher Rohland, Leesburg
(6) comments
Thank you Christopher for highlighting the ludicrous liberal push for government to get into the housing business under the guise of “safe and affordable housing “.
People always want to live in neighborhoods they can’t afford. That doesn’t mean the government has responsibility to intrude and “help”.
If you want to subsidize others housing choice, feel free to donate.
Don’t insist on spending my money.
Let's lose the obvious partisan angle which seems evident on both sides of this discussion and look at causality HONESTLY. There is an election coming up in less than 8 months and it takes LOTS of campaign donations to sponsor elections (I know :-) Most of the funding comes from the real estate development related community. What do they want. Supervisors who promise to loosen up density standards for housing so the lobbying for that will prevail. It is almost as facetious as the school board candidates promising equity to get votes, promising raises to get the LEA to endorse them or even offering to rebuild schools like Parkview for votes. Money in politics fosters the retention of power which is returned to the sponsors which could be large groups of like minded individuals who want schools funded regardless of efficiency or outcome or those who will say anything to keep their construction equipment moving and their bank accounts growing. The data is clear! The Loudoun BOS taxes its residents about 60% more than the rest of the state while exempting hospitals, golf courses and very large non-profit donors (not charities) while pandering to lower and non-income residents who will always vote for unyielding governmental generosity.
I don't understand why some people are so mean spirited. You want to go to a department or grocery store, and you want it staffed. You have someone doing your landscaping maybe somebody cleaning your house etc. But you don't want affordable housing so they can live in the community. Everybody doesn't have a college degree and if they did, we wouldn't have anyone to do our landscaping build our homes etc. The bottom line is every worker deserves a living wage and affordable housing in the county they work.
I just love the way some people get on here day after day and troll on other people's well-written and well-reasoned thoughts. And they make all these unsubstantiated claims (Democratic, Marxist mantras, actually), such as ..."Loudoun County desperately needs more safe, affordable housing" without a single statistic to back it up. Last time I checked, Loudoun was listed as one of the safest places to live and work in the entire country. According to an article I just read today in the Loudoun Times, Loudoun has half the crime of both Fairfax and Prince William counties. So, what is the basis for the "Safe" part of the claim? As for affordable, as the writer mentioned, affordability is a subjective term. And where in the Virginia Constitution does it say the Government is responsible for providing "affordable" housing? I think that has been tried in numerous cities, and the results are never good. And what statistics have been provided to prove the "desperate need" in Loudoun County? Do the homework, and back up what you say. It will give an opinion more credibility. Otherwise, it's just another bird tweeting out platitudes, and sounding like a typical Democrat, Marxist, Socialist left-wing propaganda mantra. Give us some facts to go along with your viewpoint.
Loudoun County desperately needs more safe, affordable housing. If Christopher Rohland can't see that, he has his head in the sand. Zoning & land-use policies must be reformed to facilitate the creation of lower-income housing developments. These developments would be subsidized by the government. Renters would pay 30 percent of their income for rent. I know many folks recoil at the idea of a profusion of government-subsidized housing projects. But they're long overdue in Loudoun. Due to outrageous bias, many landlords won't accept Housing Choice Vouchers. So government-subsidized housing projects are the next best thing. Welcome to Spring Loudoun!
Timmy, Tell us what is Safe & Affordable Housing? The writer says the COG did not define it. Can you define it?
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