One of the strongest themes running through the debate over whether or not a local developer should be allowed to build subsidized apartments for the elderly in West Seneca is that there is something “undesirable” about the kind of people that live in subsidized housing:
“Their main concern is they don’t want subsidized housing in town,” Piotrowski said.
The bottom line, one town official said, is that many residents don’t want “a certain element” moving into West Seneca.
Something that the residents in West Seneca should keep in mind: any homeowner who takes advantage of the mortgage interest tax deduction while they’re filing for their taxes is living in federally subsidized housing.
According to the Joint Committee on Taxation’s Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures for Fiscal Years 2008-2012, this year the Federal Government is spending $89.4 billion on mortgage interest tax deductions for primarily middle-upper income homeowners.
This year HUD will only be spending $25.936 billion on rental assistance for low-income individuals:
There are already many thousands of units of subsidized homeowners in West Seneca. Is there anything “objectionable” about that element?
For more info and analysis of the federal government’s subsidized housing policies see the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s
Changing Priorities: The Federal Budget and Housing Assistance 1976 – 2005 and the Western Regional Advocacy Project’s
Without Housing: Decades of Federal Housing Cutbacks, Massive Homelessness, and Policy Failures.
