Stability in homes and families are the key to healthy communities, good schools and a productive work force. Yet communities have been slow to address affordable housing, and in fact are often counterproductive in this important component in people's lives. The holes in the safety net mean a constant reverberation across the community from the traumas of the poor. A shortage of affordable housing leads to deteriorating inner cities, destabilized neighborhoods with frequent evictions, interruptions in education and increased family turmoil for vulnerable children. Most lending institutions require larger down payments and charge a higher interest rate for rental property mortgages.
Insurance companies charge higher premiums and require a separate tenant policy for the contents.
In almost all Ontario municipalities, rental apartment buildings are taxed at least twice as heavily as single-family homes and condominiums. Poor Americans who seek to move from welfare to work and to be responsible employees and parents, are slamming into insurmountable obstacles along the way to self-sufficiency. One of the most challenging barriers in the land of the free and the home of the brave is the quest to have a decent, safe and affordable home. For millions of Americans, affordable rental housing is out of reach and everyone in every community will continue to pay a high price for this shortage. Government exacerbates the problem every time they attack low-income housing in their community without considering the alternative.