Liberal Talk Radio

There’s something that really creeps me out about workforce housing. The term, still only vaguely defined, is an attempt to solve the problem whereby civil servants and other wage earners — teachers, police, janitors — are priced out of the communities in which they serve. In Seattle, we’re slowly becoming aware of the problem.

But the basic idea creeps me out, because what it says to me is that the middle class needs to be subsidized. Instead of paying these people a living wage, we’re going to essentially put them on the dole, stuffing them into what amounts to high-end housing projects. There’s something seriously, seriously wrong with a society when everyone but the superrich needs a subsidy just buy a house. Clearly we have an issue with income inequality in America.

The real problem here is zoning laws. Those who own homes want to keep their neighborhoods zoned single-family. And why shouldn’t they? As land becomes more scarce, their property values rise. So it’s in their interest to keep their parcels pristine and stuff the teachers and firefighters into glorified tenements. And, since so much of Washington’s tax base is from property taxes (we have no income tax), homeowners have disproportionate pull on the legislature.

I’m not saying it’s an easy problem to solve. So long as rich people want to live in the city, the city’s going to be expensive. But “workforce housing” isn’t the solution. It undermines democracy by turning people who used to be working- and middle-class into welfare recipients. Better to pay them more and build better transit networks, so they can live anywhere and work anywhere.