Affordable housing is a necessity for working families The Courier, June 14 Posted:07/14/08
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I grew up in the West Keansburg section of Hazlet and moved to Middletown a few months before I got married, it was 1990 and I was 25 years old. I had a factory job making $17.35 an hour; I worked a rotating schedule and almost always 7 days a week. The money was good; Saturday was paid at time and a half rate, while Sunday was double time.
For two years my wife and I lived in the Knollwood Gardens Apartment complex off of Kings Highway, the rent on a one bedroom unit back then was $750 a month, while the two bedroom apartment went for $850. It was pretty expensive for us at the time, but my wife and I both had jobs, our combined incomes was around $72,000 per year and we had lot of stuff so we opted for the extra bedroom. When we left Knollwood Gardens and purchased our first home in 1992, my wife and I were scared to death.
The house was a small Cape Cod fixer-upper, with a small yard and garage out back. We purchased the home for $105,000 with 5 grand down and an 8% interest rate with PMI insurance. Our monthly rent went from $850 to a whopping $1,089 a month mortgage payment with taxes and everyone said we were crazy. If it wasn’t for the help of my in-laws and parents we would have never been able to survive and fix up the house.
My wife and I lived in that house for 11 years before my family outgrew the house and it was time to move on. We sold the house for $200,000 in the spring of 2003, just as the real estate market started to heat up. We then had a nice down payment for our current residence. Today, the first home that my wife and I purchased back in 1992 is currently on the market with a list price of $350,000
Why am I telling you all this? Well it’s an attempt to put into perspective the arguments for the need of affordable housing in Middletown and throughout the County and State. Young, first time homebuyers or renters simply cannot afford housing. It has nothing to due with whether or not a person is lazy or has a job, it is all about affordability. Today, individuals or couples with incomes of less then $75,000 just can’t afford to live in Middletown or much of Monmouth County.
The first apartment that I lived in over at Knollwood Gardens now rents for $1200 a month. My first house if purchased today would cost the buyer with a 5 percent down payment and a 6% interest rate over $1890 a month before property taxes add another $400 - $500 a month to it. Young couples and singles just can’t afford to pay that much for a decent place to live.
Today, more and more empty nesters throughout the Country, State and I am sure Middletown, are finding that their grown children are coming back home to live with them. Their adult kids can no longer make it on their own due to the effects of having to take a lesser paying job due to a job loss, a divorce or a medical condition.
Wages today are stagnant; they have been this way for many years while the cost of living continues to rise. Simply put, the purchasing power of a dollar in 2008 will not buy you the same things that it once did in 1992.
This is why it had become so important for Middletown to provide affordable housing. It is not just some young, crazy, lazy, socialist hippies that think they are entitled to something for nothing, like Matt Morehead, the Chairman of the Monmouth County Young Democrats have been described as. It’s about letting men and women continue to live in the community where they grew up, went to school and have roots in place. Having affordable areas to live in Middletown would also allow people that had moved away to attend school or get a job or even served our Country come home again.
Since 1985, Middletown with its Republican rulers has done everything in its power to avoid its fair-share obligation under the Fair Housing Act and turn Middletown into a gated garden community.
If Middletown had embraced the Fair Housing Act instead of trying to run away from it by using Regional Contribution Agreements (RCA’s), many of which were left unfunded, the town would not be in the mess it finds itself in today; noncompliance with the Commission On Affordable Housing (COAH). This means that Middletown soon will not be able to have a say on how the township grows and gives developers a green light to build large scale projects in town. What would it have taken for Middletown to be within compliance of COAH since 1985? 39 affordable units per year, that’s all.
If these units of housing had built in accordance with COAH from the beginning, the impact on the community would have been negligible. Proper planning would have been done and the units would have been spread out over the township. Now, Middletown is facing developers who want to build colossal developments that would have an immediate adverse impact on our town, with little recourse.
One has to wonder why Middletown chose this path. Was it racially based? Or did the Republicans running Middletown for the past 25 years just not want any riff raff or low lives entering our town? Well according to U.S Census data, in 2006, Middletown's total population was 69,870, Of that, whites made up 63,297, or 90.6 percent of the township's population; Hispanics were 3,584, or 5.1 percent; Asians were 2,600, or 3.7 percent; and blacks were 1,119, or 1.6 percent.
I think the reason is obvious, the Middletown Republicans, like most Republicans are elitists. They don’t want outsiders moving in, particularly ones that may be of a lower class then themselves. They must remember however, that affordable housing and the people in need of it can no longer be considered “low income”. People that need affordable housing are individuals and families with incomes greater then $40,000-$60,000 year. They are our children and grandchildren, working productive individuals trying to make ends meet, not just illegal immigrants or drug dealers and addicts.
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