What the... Onion Flats?

[ShoshTrvls]

This city already has far more than its fair share of "affordable housing." If people can't find a cheap enough place to live here, let them move on and out. Our city gov't, unfortunately, seems to focus on and cater to the forever needy residents of our city. The policies encourage the needy to stay and the wealthy and self-sufficient to go. We are on our way to becoming a city of tax consumers, ala Camden.

Yep. No new building, no people moving in and gentrifying areas of the city, no $400-500,000 homes being sold. The city has been in amazing decline over the last 25 years. @@

[MariusPontmercy]

Give people nice things and they will take better care of them - shown time and time again. Not everyone, of course, but I suspect many of the people who will qualify for these homes will do so, making them better neighbors and prouder owners. Moreover, it may have a positive generational impact. Children who live in traditional low income housing are unlikely to invite their non-low-income peers to their homes to study or play, and similarly parents are reluctant to let their children go there. Thus, these kids generally socialize only with other kids at their own economic level With homes like this, those barriers to social integration are more likely to fall, to the benefit of all.

So the key to ending our poverty related problems is to give every poor family a $250,000 house and all the bells and whistles of upper middle class life! It's so simple! I mean, there's nothing to do with the value of hard work and earning your way in the world. Your position in society is simply a function of the material things you have to live with! Thanks for clearing that up for me. I guess the next step would be to move everyone out of their stigmatized PHA project lifestyles and into healthy middle class level developments! Can we put them all in your neighborhood? You guys can all socially integrate together. I'm sure it'll be a blast.

[billy ross]

I guess this explains why the fancy cars in the ghetto are so well cared for then? I know I've never seen Lexuses in the hood with bumpers falling off or Cadillacs in the hood with tape holding the smashed-up car parts on. Oh, wait - I have seen exactly these things, over and over again, ad nauseum.

Give people nice things and they will take better care of them - shown time and time again. Not everyone, of course, but I suspect many of the people who will qualify for these homes will do so, making them better neighbors and prouder owners. Moreover, it may have a positive generational impact. Children who live in traditional low income housing are unlikely to invite their non-low-income peers to their homes to study or play, and similarly parents are reluctant to let their children go there. Thus, these kids generally socialize only with other kids at their own economic level With homes like this, those barriers to social integration are more likely to fall, to the benefit of all.

[MarketStEl]

I guess this explains why the fancy cars in the ghetto are so well cared for then? I know I've never seen Lexuses in the hood with bumpers falling off or Cadillacs in the hood with tape holding the smashed-up car parts on. Oh, wait - I have seen exactly these things, over and over again, ad nauseum.

And I've seen the opposite, in the same 'hoods. I've also seen blocks of well-tended homes followed by blocks of beaten-up ones.

I hope to hell you're not overgeneralizing here. I fear you are.

[raider.adam]

And I've seen the opposite, in the same 'hoods. I've also seen blocks of well-tended homes followed by blocks of beaten-up ones.

I hope to hell you're not overgeneralizing here. I fear you are.

Well, both comments were a bit of an over-generalization.

[salf]

Changing Skyline: High-quality homes for low-income Philadelphians

It doesn't get any better than this: subsidized rental units with high end appliances and luxury features for the "poorest of the poor". Well I'm so glad. I'm sure giving poor people Bosch appliances is going to break the cycle of poverty.

How the hell do they justify these things?

You're missing the point.

Those units were about 129$ per SqF, that's the same or lower as the typical "cheap" affordable housing. You're barking at the wrong tree, you should be barking at the other developers that produce a subpar product for the same, if not more expensive cost.

Anyhow, what bothers you is the High End "Bosch" appliances? (probably only the dishwasher, in any case is no Miele), the same house using your regular GE white line would save you what? $700 ?...so the house went from $250,000 to $249,300....wow.

[MariusPontmercy]

You're missing the point.

Those units were about 129$ per SqF, that's the same or lower as the typical "cheap" affordable housing. You're barking at the wrong tree, you should be barking at the other developers that produce a subpar product for the same, if not more expensive cost.

Anyhow, what bothers you is the High End "Bosch" appliances? (probably only the dishwasher, in any case is no Miele), the same house using your regular GE white line would save you what? $700 ?...so the house went from $250,000 to $249,300....wow.

I understand the economics of the argument, but it just irks me that there is an attitude of "just give people nicer things and it will turn them into better people" that is so far off base from reality. Also the fact that these units were not built in a way to actually integrate moderately priced homes into neighborhoods where residents are afraid of rising prices. That always seems to be the point with these projects, so I don't understand why they went into an area with uniformly "affordable" existing housing stock. Something political I guess.

[Hospitalitygirl]

You're missing the point.

Those units were about 129$ per SqF, that's the same or lower as the typical "cheap" affordable housing. You're barking at the wrong tree, you should be barking at the other developers that produce a subpar product for the same, if not more expensive cost.

Anyhow, what bothers you is the High End "Bosch" appliances? (probably only the dishwasher, in any case is no Miele), the same house using your regular GE white line would save you what? $700 ?...so the house went from $250,000 to $249,300....wow.

$700 multiplied by how many houses. Also, granite countertops are not necessary. There are plenty of very nice and attractive Formica ones that cost significantly less and don't compromise quality at all.

If regular middle class people have to make certain prudent and responsible fiscal decisions, why can't these agencies?

People have no skin in the game here--it's provided for them and they tend to not even take care of these things. Somehow there needs to be a line drawn that link personal responsibility to care of property.

[annie]

The article and photos don't mention countertops, granite or no.

[billy ross]

I understand the economics of the argument, but it just irks me that there is an attitude of "just give people nicer things and it will turn them into better people" that is so far off base from reality. Also the fact that these units were not built in a way to actually integrate moderately priced homes into neighborhoods where residents are afraid of rising prices. That always seems to be the point with these projects, so I don't understand why they went into an area with uniformly "affordable" existing housing stock. Something political I guess.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Right now people are complaining about a land grab in Point Breeze where the government is racing to beat the private market to develop housing in Point Breeze, which is awash with market-rate (i.e. expensive) new construction now.

I made a point of cruising by these new homes on Belfield Avenue on Saturday morning on the way home from my son's sleepover in Melrose Park. Two things struck me. One is that that is a really raggedy stretch there, with much dilapidation in the immediate block or two surrounding it. The other is that this stretch of Logan is barely outside of Germantown, almost the former countryside outside of G-town. It may even be walkable to the now-closed Fisher's Lane Station. That area is picturesque, with very nice topography and Wister's Woods adding even more beauty to a fairly high-quality built stock that has been allowed to deteriorate to a shameful level. If there's any place where the government is going to blow money trying to stabilize neighborhoods this would be one that I would find to be the most appropriate. There is tremendous value to be unlocked by turning that area around LaSalle University into a middle class or even aspirational neighborhood like has happened around the University of Pennsylvania. I would even go so far as to say that LaSalle is the odd man out - Philly U, Temple, Penn, and St. Joe's all share the fact that they have helped to cause improvements, stabilization, and renovations to the areas immediately adjacent to their campuses, but LaSalle has so far mysteriously missed the boat, although I believe that the outer waves of Germantown's rebirth are lapping closer and closer to LaSalle's campus, in spite of LaSalle's incompetence at fixing its own nest.

And, yes, Sandy, of course I've seen and still know people in the hood who take excellent care of their homes and automobiles, who thoroughly understand the concept of stewardship. I'm a guy who loves older cars and older houses, and there are plenty of non-white folk who identify with me when I cruise my antiques, and plenty of non-white folk with whom I identify when I see them cruise their old but well-cared for cars. Sadly, though, they remain in the minority. You'd need to be willfully blind to not notice the number of out of control people in the hood who drive their heavily beat-up cars around the corners on two wheels and blow red lights like they don't exist but are then too out of it to go when the lights turn green.

[the mule]

Not by union labor. When the government rehabs rowhomes the pricetag is stratospheric.

I agree with you guys that in a city awash with 'affordable' housing, as determined by the market, the government has no business trying to drive down the cost of housing. If your housing costs are cheap and people still can't afford them, you have an income problem, not an expense problem. Attacking that problem (poverty) from the expense side is nonsensical. When you have a dysfunctional population, the solution isn't to give them everything. The solution is to help them become self-sufficient by enabling them to become functional. Then they contribute to the tax base, instead of to the tax burden.

Who said anything about union labor? These houses weren't built with union labor. The RDA rehabbed 145 homes through NSP at an average cost of $88k and $82/sf using non-union labor. Higher than market rate cost? Probably, though it's definitely not unreasonable, and it's impossible to say how much work each house needed. As nice as the Onion Flats homes are, the rehab cost is still good deal less than the cost of new construction AND it reuses the existing housing stock, transforming blighted houses into occupied homes.

[green77]

Belfield Ave is a disaster zone because it is the filled valley of the Wingohocking Creek, just like the Logan triangle. That's the primary reason there has been so much demolished there-- Onion Flats needed 25' piers- so the Avenue can be built but at a high initial cost. Logan now has a pretty solid CDC working on the commercial corridor, LaSalle is just "up creek" and Wayne Junction/Germantown are not far, so there are potential areas for help in growth, but it's going to be years.