Affordable housing survey response
County: Essex County
Area type: Suburb
Age group: 30 to 49
Education: 4 yr college degree
2024 presidential vote: Donald Trump
Proposed building floors: 4
Position: Neither support nor oppose
Best aspects (respondent's words): When I attend this meeting, I will politely let my towns managers know how I feel, and why. Now, considering the fact that when tenants are not contributing to the cost of their home, they typically do not treat the home as a valuable thing. It is common to find Trash in the yard, unkempt, bushes, overgrown, grass, and empty bottles. In common hallways, you laugh and find cigarette butts, ashes, dirt, and other evidence that the hallway has not been swept. The apartments will often have ripped screens, torn blinds, and other such fills. It wouldn’t be surprising to find holes in the walls and missing hardware. When we contrast that with those who pay a significant amount of rent, we find that the opposite is true. The property is well kept clean and shows evidence of a tenant who takes pride and where they live. Low income housing is often times taking advantage of by those who simply do not want to work and have no accountability but all of the expectation. Well, I know this sounds harsh. This is not only the perspective that I hold, but rather it is evidence over study after study after study, including Many of which I will site – Brown verse Cleveland 1979. Me Charlene verse Hampton NH 1998. Metro verse in Dromeda 1999 and among others, Hernandez and Sakura town of Winthrop 2020. When low income housing is developed in a middle to upper class suburban neighborhood, the quality of that neighborhood diminishes very quickly. I strongly oppose building a 30 unit tenant style building in this neighborhood as my family and I have invested all of our savings and we work hard to maintain our property and stay current on our bills, my husband and I both working full-time jobs as well as a part-time jobs each just to stay afloat, and I find it insulting that there are people who feel they are entitled to live off of my text and also destroy my neighborhood
Worst aspects (respondent's words): Similar to what I would say when I attend a meeting based on my previous recommendation percentages, I would let my town manager know that I do not want any low income housing units built in my neighborhood. I would prefer 100% of any units being built The afforded by only those of high income or upper middle class income, such as our way. My reasons are as such low income tenants do not work and only want to play victim while contributing nothing to society at my expense. If they are required to work and 30% of their income is going to their rent, while I do respect the fact that they work, if one is only making minimum wage and paying $500 a month that would mean they’re only working part time and my question would be why am I working part-time and full-time jobs as is my husband? To live in the same neighborhood as someone who is working part-time? I find that in again, evidence has shown that those who do not pay in adequate amount of rent do not take care of the property in which they reside as well as they would have they been paying appropriate rent. My children, my husband and myself spend a lot of time cleaning our property, maintaining our home and partaking and cleaning my neighborhood and I would prefer not to have lazy, filly and entitled people as neighbors.