How Best to Provide Affordable Housing?

The issue of affordable housing for Bay County is becoming increasingly important. An article in the February 22, 2007, edition of the News Herald (“Housing Summit Set for Friday”) raises the issue of affordable housing in our community.

In my view, we should not just be talking about subsidized or low cost housing here. Housing costs are an issue for many community members on fixed incomes – and they are also an issue for many middle class families who are finding themselves priced out of the housing market.

Mayor DeGeorge is quoted in the News Herald article: “We don’t have the income to support the escalating property values.” In my view, her observation is correct. So what is to be done?

It seems we have two choices.

On the one hand, we could try to legislate poverty for everyone. Regulate the market. Impose subsidies. Let the politicians decide who lives where.

On the other hand, we could focus on growing our local economy, attracting new businesses, creating more and better jobs and generally working to lift everyone’s standard of living.

Personally, I’m for growing the economy and increasing opportunity. That’s why I support relocating the airport, it’s why I support expanding education – and it’s why I generally oppose government over-regulating business. If we learned one thing from Ronald Reagan (and in fact we learned many things), it’s that free markets work.

So how do we bring affordable housing to Bay County? We should be working with developers, lenders and the business community to create – and approve – developments that can support economically viable affordable housing.

Now, building more houses means growth, and for many, growth is a bad word. But no community can stand still, frozen in time. We have to keep moving forward, or we all lose.

One day, in the not too distant future, we may see thousands of well-priced, attainable houses in the West Bay sector. We may see new communities grow there, as jobs are created in the regional employment center that has been planned near the new airport.

We have to remember: The issues impacting Bay County are inter-related. We spendt years working through the West Bay Sector plan – and it provides a great blueprint for our future. We have to remember the tremendous vision this community created together.