Manuel:
“I think the solutions really will come as we get in better dialogue
with our neighbors …
NEW WINDSOR – Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress has been studying issues regarding urban centers and affordable housing, leading to them hosting a forum Thursday afternoon. Expert representatives within the field shed light on what is happening in local urban centers, as well as how to improve the conditions for residents and developers alike.
Pattern’s Vice President for Research, Development and Community Planning Joseph Czajka said the idea to hold such a forum and research the state of urban, affordable housing, is to identify how resident’s income reflects their abilities and living situations, as well as to change the paradigm surrounding what urban, or affordable housing, is. He said the data they have gathered so far say one thing: that wages are not reflecting the standard of living requirements right now.
“Many people are paying more than 50 percent of their gross, monthly income toward rent, or toward home ownership,” Czajka said. “That leaves less than 50 percent to live on, that’s: to buy food, it’s to buy clothes, it’s to put gas in your car, to insure your car, to get to work.”
This may not be an easy issue to mitigate, according to the experts, but following an inspirational speech on her method for gauging invested dollars in low-income areas called
“Opportunity 360”, Vice President of Knowledge, Impact and Strategy at Enterprise Community Partners Tiffany Manuel said it will be up to increased public will and education, rather than policy makers, to begin the beneficial change.
“I think the solutions really will come as we get in better dialogue with our neighbors, as we engage communities about what we want to do,” said Manuel. “I think it’s no longer a time when we can say that policy makers are going to go off and figure it out and come bring it back to us and tell us what is going to happen. We have to be coming together in our town halls, in our community halls, in our schools to talk about the kind of communities that we want to fashion together, and what that is going to look like.”
To that end, Pattern is currently creating profiles for 25 Hudson Valley communities, providing updates, housing profiles, information and data to be distributed to the public upon completion.
Pattern expects this study will be done late this year, or early next, and will add more insight into the urban, as well as affordable, housing climate.
