In response to a story from Richard Rolke in the Jan. 20 edition referencing a meeting held in Mel Arnold’s office on Jan. 17 to discuss affordable housing issues, I would like to make two observations.
It was encouraging to see that Mr. Arnold prefaced the issue by alluding to influences like lack of employment, low income levels, and the inability of people to accumulate first and last monthly payments to meet deposit demands from renters.
One of the possible solutions suggested was tax credits for developers to build rental housing.
These are all salient factors that need to be taken into consideration.
Eric Foster, the Liberal MLA discussed the feasibility of colleges and universities building their own housing which would alleviate student demand on private housing.
In terms of the last option, I would wonder whether increased capital expenditures by learning institutes into that housing would push up tuition costs to unacceptable levels.
Students will tell you now that they are dealing with prohibitive costs in education result in crippling student loans which are very onerous to repay in these economic times.
Akbal Mund, the Mayor of Vernon, opined that the city can do little but change zoning to facilitate more low income housing be constructed in the city. On balance, this is a good start, and I would agree with Akbal Mund in his conclusion of “It’s important that we keep talking about it.”
Dean Roosevelt
Vernon
