Letters to the Editor

Affordable Housing

So, am I to believe what 3rd District Councilwoman Kristina Duggan said at the June 4 council meeting concerning how to deal with rising crime rates in Long Beach? She said that a solution to the problem would be – drum roll please – “more affordable housing.”

She also extolled the virtues of having turned Community Hospital into a rehab center, thereby leaving hard-working, tax-paying citizens with no emergency or hospital services, and is happy to further defile their communities and quality of life by forcing four-story buildings filled with 70+ “affordable” housing units (and inadequate parking) into their neighborhoods—just as the city is attempting to do on Fountain Street, next to an elementary school and within four blocks of the Community Hospital rehab center.

This will forever change the very soul and property values of this older, established middle-class neighborhood. I can’t help but notice that Ms. Duggan is not inviting this chaos into her well-to-do neighborhood.

And am I to believe that the “smash and grab” retail thieves and other perpetrators will mend their ways if offered affordable housing? And this affordable housing, of course, is built on the backs of taxpayers – working to keep their heads above water amid the rising city taxes and utility costs, which are themselves a major cause of housing insecurity. [It’s] the same old city-speak gobbledygook over and over again.

Merry Colvin