POINT/COUNTERPOINT: Do local governments deserve the money they want for housing?
POINT/COUNTERPOINT: Do local governments deserve the money they want for housing?
My July 2024 column for Colorado Politics and the Colorado Springs/Denver Gazettes
Below is an excerpt from my July column. If you’d like to read the full version, please click here. If you’d like to read my counterpoint’s argument on the same topic, please click here.
The electorate rewards politicians with solutions. The grander, the better. Be it the Green New Deal or Project 2025, thousands of words are spilled with the goal of convincing voters their side has the solutions to all their problems.
When it comes to making progress on the issue of housing supply in Colorado, I sure would like to see the real answer printed on a sign hanging upon a press conference podium: "Sorry, we’re the problem." That may not be a winning bumper-sticker slogan, but the truth rarely is.
“Affordable housing” used to mean just that: privately owned housing accessible to those earning lower incomes. These were, and still are, usually apartments or condominiums. Contemporarily, the phrase has morphed into a category of socialized, semi-socialized, or highly regulated housing units partially or completely subsidized or owned by governing bodies. Despite years of failure to effectively control housing prices via an army of city inspectors, fines and penalties, politicians continue to double down.
In Denver, Mayor Mike Johnston’s most recent proposal to increase the sales tax by half-a-cent is unfortunately more of the same. Government takes your money to partially fund or perhaps partially own “affordable housing” units that will be provided to those who need housing the most. Dubbed the “Affordable Denver Fund,” it seems likely to go before Denverites this November for a vote.
Though I appreciate the proposal, as it currently stands, is probably as market-friendly as a Democratic mayor could viably offer given the political reality, Denver (and many other municipalities) have failed to recognize, let alone fix, their past failures. There has been no effort to fix the regulatory regime that has landed the city in the predicament it is in today.
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