Rough Draft of Final Persuasive Paper

At the end of a weekday, many working Americans watch the clock: 3:45, 4:30, 4:50, 4:55, 4:57, freedom. At the end of a weekday, many working Americans sit in traffic: 5 more exits, 3 more exits, 1 more exit, home. Oh how it feels to be home and isolated from the troubles of the day - the phone calls, the files, the complaints. But for many Americans, that is precisely where the trouble begins. Oh how it feels to be homeless. Pushing papers and flipping burgers almost seems like an escape for many of Seattle’s individuals and families who cannot afford housing in this metropolitan city. While some seek solace in shelters, others are not as fortunate. As a naïve transplant from the suburbs, I found this out the hard way.

Riding on the number four bus headed downtown from Capitol Hill, I sat next to a woman and her two young children. “While I was pregnant with this one” she said nodding to the eldest of the two, “this was home.” Her “home” was under the I-5 James Street overpass. As one of the 2,685 individuals who live and sleep on the streets of Seattle nightly, this single mother-to-be was in desperate need of a true home with walls, running water, and heat. Fortunately, through a series of opportunities and city services, she was able to move from under the freeway to 1 of 10,000 affordable housing units created by the city’s 2002 Seattle Housing Levy.

True, my heart strings were pulled by her story, but I wanted more.

I wanted to know how many units in how many years, in which neighborhoods, and at what cost to the city and its taxpaying citizens. My curiosity had been sparked by her story, but its energy ran on wanting answers. In 2002, city policymakers were able to convince Seattle voters to pass a seven-year, $86 million property tax levy that would provide affordable housing opportunities to low-income residents. It then implemented incentive programs for developers to include moderate to low-income housing units in projects that met certain standards. Program after program, dollar after dollar the city was on a mission.

Compelling stories of hardship and success, I found out, only go so far until the citizens of Seattle want results, numbers, and profits in this day of recession and federal failings. Politicians were accused of bending over for interest groups. Developers were labeled the Big Bad Wolf of the Emerald City. Many people even threw their hands up at the thought of low-income individuals and families living in their neighborhoods, shopping at their stores, and attending their schools. It seems, even today as we approach the 2009 renewal of the levy, as though no one can be pleased.

If people can not be convinced by street to home sweet home stories, the question remained: What economic benefits does affordable housing lend to the public?

Before I argue that affordable housing presents the city with many economic opportunities and benefits, we must first recognize that there is an existing and growing problem of homelessness in Seattle. As companies begin to downsize and budget cut during times of economic stress, Washington State has seen unemployment rise from 6.3 to 7.1% from November to December of 2008. Additionally, many individuals and families are struggling to pay rents and mortgages. In Seattle’s annual One Night Count of homelessness, it was estimated that the number of individuals living on the street increased 2% since the 2008 count while South King County saw a 68% increase and numbers nearly tripled in Kent. Many blogs focused on traveling, like the Virtual Tourist, are host to extended online conversations about the adverse effects of homelessness on tourism in Seattle. While homelessness is preventable and has a direct effect on the city’s economy, many people remain opposed to the development of more low-income housing.

One of the most prominent arguments against the development of affordable housing is that it has the possibility of de-valuing neighborhoods. It is cautioned that with the introduction of moderate and especially low-income housing, property values will drop; newcomers with children will burden the school systems, cost the community more than they pay in taxes, while residential areas will become cramped with pillbox building structures. Many people even worry about the quality of life that affordable housing and its tenants will bring to their streets.

Many of these arguments are based on stereotypes and unreasonable fear. In contrary, the development of affordable housing complexes means a facelift for surrounding areas; it means money that is put into parks and remodeling. Funding that goes to moderate to low-income housing has helped to conceive and execute the philosophy of “smart growth,” which redevelops neglected neighborhoods into communities that are walkable, have ready access to mass transit, and are designed around architecture that is dense and compact but attractively built. Parts of New Jersey have realized the positive effects caused by creating affordable housing. Places like South Orange, Union Township, and Cranford have developments built adjacent to train stations as a modest cure to the region’s overwhelming addiction to the car and low-density sprawl.

Following in its footsteps, Washington State is creating a bill that ensures the close proximity of affordable housing and light-rail lines in South Seattle so that people are able to live and work within the same or nearby communities. Some opponents argue that high-density building would cramp communities and congest streets. This would not be the case with an increase and revitalization of mass transit. People must be able to live and work in the same neighborhood if the economy expects to grow. But why?

The answer is simple: SPRAWL IS NOT AN OPTION.

Low-density sprawl is not an option for a variety of reasons. First, we have already witnessed the housing market crash and mortgages skyrocket. It is not economically viable to families to sell or buy suburban homes, nor can developers create large scale, low-density neighborhoods. The bulldozing has stopped. Above all, investments in affordable and mixed-income residential housing in areas of high employment help keep cities and neighborhoods vibrant and economically strong. Big businesses must come to understand that they can only thrive if skilled workers can afford to live in either their immediate communities, or within easy commuting distance. Productivity is lost when workers have to commute long distances every day. In total, communities without affordable housing choices find themselves losing employers, workers, and a quality of life that comes from an economically diverse environment.

When families and individuals pay more than 30% of their income for housing, they are considered cost burdened and may have difficulty affording necessities such as food, clothing, transportation, and medical care. It is important for their sake and the surrounding community, that these households have extra money on necessities. Neighborhoods and businesses financially profit when individual workers such as retail clerks, receptionists, janitors, insurers, teachers, restaurant and construction workers return a part of their income back into the local economy.

Instead of “de-valuing” neighborhoods as some worry, a variety of income levels ensures economic diversity, returns to local businesses, and a generation of large tax surpluses. These communities are not only made up entirely of families but of elderly people, divorced singles, and young couples. With the additional funding acquired through taxes, developers’ incentive programs, and federal spending, many communities and large cities use the money for open space acquisition and additional school programs. In the fall of 2008, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City announced that the city has met its halfway point in its creation or preservation of 165,000 units of housing for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers by 2013. This success is due to “A number of strategies have helped the city reach the halfway point, including rezonings, new financing incentives for developers and the identification of land that city and state agencies own but no longer use.”

But while the successes of the New York City plan have been applauded, many housing activists have argued that it has not kept pace with the shrinking numbers of subsidized apartments in the city. This issue could be countered by employing more construction workers (who would be able to afford living in these neighborhoods) to build more housing complexes. Construction begins immediately, is continual because of contractual commitments, and is funded by all three sectors: the non-profit, the for-profit developers, and federal taxes. Additionally, profits could be made by revitalizing empty industrial sites, desolate shopping malls, and other underused properties. These spaces and the construction jobs that they create are opportunities for economic gains and social redevelopment.