The Lansing Housing Commission’s decision to sell the scattered houses is short sighted. Not to mention inconsistent with HUD’s Equity Plan: https://www.hud.gov/equity
Immediate gain for one party, immediate loss for another, and a future debt that will be realized in social issues such as gun violence, homelessness, substance abuse, mental and physical illness, poor education, and all the other things associated with inequality, inequity, racism, classism and bigotry.
This is about more than housing stock and the management of the houses. It is more than a name change on a lease.
It is about housing insecurity and the trauma and stress this brings, it is about the care and compassion afforded to our fellow community members as they struggle through this. It is about the will to do the right thing for the community. This should be the intention, not to get “these people” out of the way so you can replace them with “decent folk.”
In the short term it is about where will the residents ultimately have to move or under what conditions will they have to live?
Then there is what happens to the money from the sale, how does it invest in our people. What will the city do for our people? Will it be spent wisely?
In the long term it is concentrated poverty and further loss of equity, capital, resource, and opportunity – furthering the cycle of poverty.
When we sell our housing stock to outsiders, we sell our community’s opportunity that can provide prosperity and wellness. And as you should know we are struggling out here, we need every opportunity and all the hope we can get.
We basically have very little money, little financial resources and almost no capital. We barely survive most of us check to check. You know that we at the Fledge see this every day.
This sale by LHC to SK Investment Group LLC (LARA Entity Formation) will eventually lead to worse housing conditions in some areas, gentrification in others and concentration of people in poverty in others. Churning the poor more and more “out of the way.”
Any profit made from our community’s rent will leave our community. All the gains from property tax and income tax will go right to public safety (mostly the police budget). What is the upside? We get the money? That money comes in to centralize poverty (we especially should not be letting this happen), the same people will continue to maintain the properties (so this will stay in dis-repair), the profit from the rent leaves our community (further taking resources, SK ain’t gonna spend shit at Quality Dairy).
I see a lot of downside.
Housing insecurity is scary and this sale increases the fear and the trauma related to the over all insecurities (job, food, transportation, health……). The way this is being handled is appalling, it certainly is not trauma informed.
This sale will make it more difficult for our people and communities to scrounge up the resource to keep going. This will create even more problems. In 5 years you will be asking why is there so much gun violence in building so and so. And the answer is still going to be economic inequities and disparities.
But there is a lot of upside to keeping the properties:
We as a community understand we do have forms of capital at our disposal: natural, human, social, and built. And this capital can be utilized to create prosperity and wellness for our community.
It is through the proper management of these other forms of capital that our communities are able to pull things together and make things happen. Lets get these houses in the hands of the grass roots organizations solving our communities problems who need the houses to help people through their struggle and eventually to home ownership. These non-profits also have access to grants to help with renovation, energy and in some cases expansion.
This LHC sale will remove more opportunities for generational wealth. 202 less houses for people potentially to buy. 202 less houses for our grass roots non-profits to utilize and make things happen in. The sale of these houses lowers the probability we will be able to increase equity for all.
This will spiral down to lack of opportunity and hope especially when people do not have their basic needs met.
Lansing is known for its affordable cost of living. We are known as an affordable city. Keeping the houses in our community will keep the housing more affordable We use this as a selling point to corporations who might want to locate here. It is Economic Development 101: Business Attraction.
I would also like to point out when we do this, we are actually selling out our workers, our people, our communities. The employer will come here and expect to pay lower than average wages.
This all is not fair to the people you represent.
So in addition, we must invest in our people.
We should be a city proud of our people, all of our people. And I am not saying you are not proud of all of us, but I am saying our systems and our behaviour as an entity is oppressive, racist, unjust, and inequitable. You have an opportunity to make a difference. We have an opportunity to make a significant change and send significant message to everyone.
We have a very gritty, industrious, entrepreneurial community, across all genders, races, ethnic groups, abilities and economic class. But we also have 50% of our community under the ALICE Threshold. This is based on the policy and precedent you set in your actions. Poverty is a policy decision.
Yet we still continue on.
Can you imagine if we invested in, and cultivated our human capital? I know that I can. I see the potential everyday. We should be investing and re-investing in all of our people starting with basic needs, including housing for all. Lets make it our mission to give 202 families safe, affordable, secure housing that they can realistically eventually own.
And if we keep doing more and more of this, we will be able to stive to meet their expectations and fulfill the promise of equality, equity, justice, opportunity, the pursuit of happiness and peace.
Sounds like a small step for a giant goal, but “rivers are made from drops of water.”
We need to make our priority our people, our community. We need to make our #1 selling point to any business we are trying to attract our diverse, innovative and entrepreneurial communities. We need to stop selling off our opportunity and selling out our people.
What if the pitch was: “you have a problem? Then come to Lansing, we’ll solve it with you.”
We are not naive, we do understand that property taxes are the main revenue for the City of Lansing. We understand that some of the things above will lower that revenue. But only in the short term. Imagine Lansing being known for it’s creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial population. We would all have higher wages (more income tax), we would attract more businesses, and we would live in more valuable houses. Our current models are a race to ZERO.
And you guys can obviously help do this by using your voice, bringing the right people together and stopping this sale. Make this your fight with us. And if you need help, “I Assure You We are Open!”