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PAGE TWO/COMMENTARY

NO PLACE TO LAY MY HEAD

There was an old woman,

who lived in a shoe;

With the price of apartments,

"Twas all she could do.

Last August, Fairfield County Mutual Housing opened six new apartments in

Norwalk. God bless 'em. They fixed up an old rat trap I thought would come

down in the next storm. Six families got a new start. It happens every few

years.

The problem is what happens in between. Last week I drove along one of our

main drags and noticed an old house was missing. It had long ago been carved

up into apartments. Now it was gone, sacrificed to make room for Norwalk's

fifth or sixth Dunkin' Donuts. That's important, I guess. It's over a mile to

the next one.

Where did the tenants go? Who knows? We don't keep track. Looking at the

classifieds, I'd guess they had a little easier time than before the 1988 real

estate collapse. But not much. Apartments are being torn down and burned up

every day. Very few get replaced, especially if they are in a business zone.

There's just no profit in building new ones. Consequently, 53 percent of

Connecticut residents cannot afford to rent a two-bedroom unit.

Some can't afford to rent anything at all.

No one knows just how many. We do know that in 1995, 16,000 people swallowed

their pride enough to use a homeless shelter. The average stay was 28 nights.

Total visits were up five percent over the year before. Of that 16,000, 20

percent were children.

Bridgeport reports hosting 1,700 of those guests, and having to turn away

another 1,700. There is no way to count those who chose not to come at all.

In addition to this suffering, there was a notice in our church bulletin. The

local shelter had just been hit with a 40 percent budget cut from the state.

Could we please attend a gospel concert at a nearby black church to help raise

money? Or, just mail in a check? Well, I suppose so, but frankly I'd rather

pay it through my taxes, to be sure everyone else is ponying up too.

As you can imagine, not everyone is. Just the reverse, in fact. By far the

biggest government housing subsidy goes to people who are not poor at all.

That subsidy is the mortgage interest deduction in our federal and state

income taxes. Ironically, the bigger your house, the bigger your subsidy. The

only limit is on that part of your mortgage over $1 million.

Angels from heaven might suggest we trim some of that largess and use it to

fund a bit more housing for the indigent. Maybe so, but congressmen and

legislators aren't angels. They rarely whisper about cutting the mortgage

interest deduction, but they often shout, successfully, to cut housing

assistance. And public housing, of course, is being torn down faster than it

is being built.

If, by magic, a state administration should materialize which concerned itself

with housing, it could whip up an action plan in no time. The first step would

be to provide enough shelters to bring everyone in from the cold. Second would

be enough housing certificates so all poor families could afford to rent.

Third would be subsidies to housing co-ops, like that one in Norwalk, so poor

families who get their act together can earn a share of ownership. (Statewide,

there are only 6,000 such units). Fourth would be special subsidies to

Hartford landlords making it worth while to fix up their abandoned apartments.

Fifth would be quotas of subsidized units for each town to construct, as they

do in New Jersey and Massachusetts. Sixth would be the staffing to make it all

work.

Is it pointless to mention many other countries do this? I suppose so. And

after all, who cares about angels? Do you suppose we could just do it out of

the goodness of our own hearts?

(Bill Collins, a former mayor of Norwalk, is a syndicated columnist.)