From Letters to the Editor, ABC Newspapers, March 14

Affordable Housing Goals

To the Editor:

 Write your goals down. Without the written record there is no accountability, no way to measure progress. This is true for individuals, a company or the Coon Rapids City Council.

As Coon Rapids citizens and supporters of MICAH, we believe that the city council must take ownership of a problem and be held accountable for helping to solve it.

Here is the problem: 39 percent of our renter-occupied households are over-burdened by rent payments of more than 30 percent of their annual income, which is the accepted definition of housing affordability for a specific household.

This often means that other basic needs are not sufficiently met, things like food and healthcare. It also prevents local businesses from benefiting from having these people fully involved in the local economy. Lower rents translate into more money available for purchases at local shops.

These households include retirees, single adults and young families. Some are beginning careers and struggling to make ends meet as they build their resumes and job skills.

Others battle illness and disabilities that prevent them from climbing onto any corporate ladder with a promise of higher pay. Still others find themselves on fixed incomes that do not allow them to keep up with rising housing costs. They struggle today and they will struggle tomorrow unless something is done.

The city of Coon Rapids is in the midst of updating our comprehensive plan, a plan that will guide the development decisions within our city for the years 2011-2020. What goals are you planning to write down in this document?

Specifically, what are you going to include for goals, objectives and policies that will allow Coon Rapids to meet the targets that the Metropolitan Council has given us in the area of Housing - 940 new units with 200 of them to be affordable?

A headline in the Feb. 29 Herald says, “Affordable housing is a point of controversy in the plan,” and that “there will be some thorny issues”. We believe that the draft minutes from the recent council/staff retreat show they know that more reasonably priced renter-occupied housing units are needed in the city.

The ‘controversy” and the “thorny issue”, then, is that the city council refuses to address the issue head-on. It does not want to be held accountable if the goals are not reached.

Address this important issue head-on: Write a solid, measurable goal into the comprehensive plan that will let everyone know that our city council commits itself to solving this dire problem.

Write down the goal. And let’s get on with reaching it.


Len Powell

Cheryl Alvarez

Cindy Novak

Sue Baysden
Coon Rapids