Affordable housing is desperately needed in the United States. Some cities have waiting lists as much as five to ten years long of people who need housing assistance, either in the form of rental assistance or an affordably-priced home. The Alaska Housing Finance Corporation recently closed its Housing Choice Voucher waiting list, on which over 4,500 families have been placed, in hopes of getting one of the 2,400 available housing vouchers. Officials have no idea how long it will take them to help everyone on the list.
The scenario is common across the country: long waits and not enough housing.
But developers who try to address the on-going issue often experience significant resistance, not only from elected officials, but also from the general public. Despite their best efforts to educate the public about affordable housing, many still believe that housing for low-income families leads to increased crime and lower property values. As a result, developers willing to take on affordable housing projects have a hard time finding places to build. In an attempt to turn the tide of public opinion, housing authorities and non-profits have begun trying something new.
Last year, the United Way of Morris County, New Jersey hosted a homes tour that featured not luxury houses but affordable ones. The purpose was to educate people on both the availability and quality of affordable housing in the hopes of promoting the available homes to people who needed them while also showing local residents that affordable homes can be built to a high standard and can blend in with the rest of a neighborhood.
Earlier this year, an organization called Neighborhood Works did the same thing, for the same reasons. Neighborhood Works is a national non-profit organization that helps lower-income families get into affordable housing. Recently, staff in Montana hosted a tour of affordable homes in the city of Great Falls.
Typically, affordable home tours also have staff on hand that can help interested parties determine if they qualify for certain types of assistance - like down payment grants. People can potentially leave the tour having started the process of buying a house. Area residents sometimes receive personal invitations to attend the tour, either by phone or - more often - by mail. Those who attend often leave with a higher opinion of both affordable housing and its residents.
Affordable housing tours can be effective tools for ทาวน์โฮมมือสอง ราคาถูก getting homes off the market while simultaneously easing the concerns of the neighborhood-at-large.
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