Affordable housing is not just a collection of construction material and land costs. It’s a purse that must stretch to cover a rental or purchase . . . after any and all other essential costs have been plucked out. Food and utility costs are some obvious essentials.
This series of articles covers essential costs or benefits that might not seem so obvious, but nonetheless, depending on how they are structured, can turn affordable housing into unaffordable housing.
Finding Two Houses Instead of One
You can’t take them with you when you go?
Well, actually it turns out that you can. That is, when the word ‘go’ is used in its normal sense of ‘going somewhere’ and ‘them’ turns out to be close family you can’t bear to leave behind.
The context? Finding affordable housing in one of the world’s overheated housing markets where a person might have roots and family connections, but where the prospects of finding affordable housing for yourself is a pipe dream, and leaving the city in the only option.
So why not take the entire family with you when you go?
In a lament about the ridiculous housing prices in Vancouver, B.C. read more about how relocating to buy (or presumably to rent) two houses can be cheaper than staying put to afford only one, in HUFFPOST: Affordable Housing Problem Is Causing Vancouver’s Brain Drain: Minister Carole James
