Lazarus Returns by Tom Reynolds
The HUD program called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) is a program you should really be aware of even though it’s not about 2A.
Obama’s HUD discovered a brief mention in the 1968 Fair Housing Act, and created AFFH, which calls for diversity in all levels of housing in towns and suburbs.
Towns and suburbs are obligated to “do more than simply not discriminate”. They have to make it possible for low-income minorities to choose suburban living and the towns must also provide “adequate support to make their choices possible.”
Vox suggests “adequate support” might include:
providing rides and counseling to those who might want to move from a low-income urban area to an affluent suburban one; (they want to move into more affluent community but can’t afford a ride to get there?)
require increasing the value of housing vouchers so that low-income recipients could cash them out in more expensive neighborhoods; (increasing government subsidies!)
requiring cities to steer new subsidized housing development into wealthier locales. (I’ll bet gated communities won’t get subsidized housing near them but middle class neighborhoods will now be classified as wealthier locales.)
Under this program, suburbs were viewed as fundamentally unjust communities because they prevented taxation from flowing into the urban cities they surround. (Suburbanites are selfishly keeping their own money.)
AFFH’s plan included building high-density housing in low density suburban neighborhoods, (goodbye local zoning laws).
Trump’s HUD Secretary, Ben Carson stripped away Obama's AFFH Rule. (In response, the left-wing media played the race card. Ignoring that Ben Carson is black.)
But the Fair Housing Act of 1968 is still on the books and the AFFH rule still exists and Like Lazarus rising from the dead, AFFH is back under President Joe Biden.
In January, the Biden administration’s HUD department proposed a new rule that would require virtually all communities across the U S A to create plans to address local housing discrimination. (As with all whites being racist under the definition of ‘white supremacy’, rural and suburban communities are labelled as discriminatory under AFFH.)
Backed by enforcement mechanisms and credible threats of yanking needed funding or facing a penalty which entails the potential loss of billions of dollars in federal funding, any city or county that accepts HUD grant money would have to comply.
Some predict there may be opposition. (Ya think!)
“Any move toward an increase in density generally faces very strong negative reaction from neighborhood groups that have significant influence on the decisions made by local politicians,” says Greg Proctor, vice president for affordable housing for RealPage Inc. (Put a less deceptive way, Proctor thinks it is bad that local voters have a say in what local elected politicians do.)
Never having met a radical left proposal she did not like, Kathy Hochul has joined Biden with her latest plan to destroy New York State.
Politico reported in February that Hochul is pushing ‘a proposal that may be radioactive in the bedroom communities (of the lower Hudson Valley and Long Island): A plan to mandate more housing in those suburban counties…:”
“Hochul wants to give the state bold new authority to override local zoning laws in cases where municipalities resist her measure, which she hopes will help address a housing shortage that made New York one of the least affordable places in the country.”
New York State had the largest interstate population loss of any state in the nation last year, according to Census data. The governor attributes it to housing unaffordability, impacting the state’s ability to compete for jobs and residents.
According to ‘Hochul think’, NYS’s bleeding of population and jobs is the fault of rural and suburban voters who don’t want to live in congested, crime ridden cities.
Could taxes and regulation have something to do with people moving to Texas and Florida, which have lower taxes and regulations? Nah!
Half of the 800,00 homes that Hochul wants to see built will be in NYC and require a tax incentive for affordable housing. And there you have the underlying adjective in her plans: affordable - which is another word for government subsidized which is another way of saying taxpayer funded.
“If you build it they will come” works in the movies but there are other issues in real life. It’s laughable to think that if we just add houses that jobs and people will come running back. (I bought a house in New York and stayed for the taxes is not a winning slogan.)
Another Hochul measure would require downstate counties to rezone to allow more dense housing near rail stations where they will have easier access to a certain crime ridden city that people are leaving for the suburbs. (In Hochul speak: “Transit oriented development.”)
If the targets aren’t met or new zoning changes aren’t made, a state appeals process would allow circumvention of local zoning restrictions. (You shouldn’t have a say in what the area you live in looks like. Hochul knows best and you’ll just have to suck-it-up.)
An alternative to family homes are rental units. Hochul’s answer to that is to include more anti-landlord regulations in her budget. Brilliant strategy to increase housing development!
The governor is looking to get her proposal approved by the Democratic led Legislature, as part of a budget deal for the fiscal year that starts April 1. It is reported that the Democrats who control both legislative houses want to soften the bill - but still pass it.
Because the federal and state governments are now funding so many local projects, they only need to threaten to withhold funding to trample on constitutional rights. (The founding fathers warned about what a too powerful central government would do to individual rights.)
You might want to contact your federal and state representatives and tell them how much you are looking forward to your rural town / suburb becoming a clone of NY City.
