unit 9-Housing crisis goes suburban-含翻译-住房危机蔓延到郊区

In the past five years, housing prices in Fairfax County, Virginia have grown 12 times as fast as household incomes. Today, the countys average family would have to spend 54% of its income to afford the countys average home; in 2000, the figure was 26%. The situation is so dire that Fairfax recently began offering housing subsidies to families earning $90,000 a year; soon, that figure may go as high as $110,000 a year.THE HOUSING CRISIS GOES SUBURBAN Michael Grunwald1. Seventy years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the Depression had left one-third of the American people ill-housed, ill-clothed and ill-nourished, Americans are well-clothed and increasingly over nourished. But the scarcity of affordable housing is a deepening national crisis, and not just for inner-city families on welfare. The problem has climbed the income ladder and moved to the suburbs, where service workers cram their families into overcrowded apartments, college graduates have to crash with their parents, and firefighters, police officers and teachers cant afford to live in the communities they serve.2. Home ownership is near an all-time high, but the gap is growing between the Owns and the Own-Nots as well as the Owns and the Own-80-Miles-From-Work. One-third of Americans now spend at least 30% of their income on housing, the federal definition of an unaffordable burden, and half the working poor spend at least 50% of their income on rent, a critical burden. The real estate boom of the past decade has produced windfalls for Americans who owned before it began, but affordable housing is now a serious problem for more low- and moderate-income Americans than taxes, Social Security or gas prices.3.America used to care a lot about affordable housing. Roosevelt signed housing legislation in 1934 and 1937, providing mortgages, government apartments and construction jobs for workers down on their luck. In 1949, Congress .set an official goal of a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family, and in 1974, President Richard M. Nixon began offering subsidized rent vouchers to millions of low-income tenants in private housing. For half a century, most housing debates in Washington revolved around how much to expand federal assistance.4. But for the past two decades, the only new federal housing initiative has been HOPE VI5, a Clinton administration program that has demolished 80,000 units of the worst public housing and built mixed-income developments in their place. The program has eliminated most of the high-rise hellholes that gave public housing a bad name and has revived some urban neighborhoods. But it has razed more subsidized apartments than it has replaced.5. Overall, the number of households receiving federal aid has flatlined since the early 1990s, despite an expanding population and a ballooning budget. Congress has rejected most of President Bushs proposed cuts, but there has been virtually no discussion of increases; affordable-housing advocates spend most of their time fighting to preserve the status quo.6. And its a tough status quo. Today, for every one of the 4.5 million low-income families that receive federal housing assistance, there are three eligible families without it. Fairfax County has 12,000 families on a waiting list for 4,000 assisted apartments. Its golden when you get onenobody wants to give it up, says Conrad Egan, chairman of the Fairfax housing authority. It sounds odd, but the victims of todays housing crisis are not people living in the projects, but people who arent even that lucky.7. Some liberals dream of extending subsidies to all eligible low-income families, but that $100 billion-a-year solution was unrealistic even before the budget deficit ballooned again. So even some housing advocates now support time limits on most federal rent aid. The time limits included in welfare reform 10 years ago were controversial, but studies suggest theyve helped motivate recipients to get off the dole. And unlike welfare, housing aid is not a federal entitlement, so taking it away from one family after a few years would provide a break for an equally deserving family.8. Its a no-brainer, says David Smith, an affordable-housing advocate in Boston. You cant sustain the internal contradiction of no limits.9. The root of the problem is the striking mismatch between the demand for and the supply of affordable housing or, more accurately, affordable housing near jobs. Fifteen million families now spend at least half their income on housing, according to Harvards Joint_Center for Housing Studies: many skimp on health care, child care and food to do so. Others reduce their rents by overcrowding, which studies link to higher crime rates, poorer academic performance and poorer health; Los Angeles alone has 620.000 homes with more than one person per room. Other workers are enduring increasingly long commutes from less expensive communities, a phenomenon known as driving to qualify.10. This creates all kinds of lousy outcomeschildren who dont get to see their parents, workers who cant make ends meet when gas prices soar, exurban sprawl, roads clogged with long-distance commuters emitting greenhouse gases. I dont think were creating strong communities by forcing people into their cars four hours a day, says Cathy Hudgins. chairwoman of the housing committee for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. Affordable housing also helps make communities competitive; its not clear how Fairfax can keep creating jobs if workers cant afford to live there.11. The best thing local officials can do to promote affordable housing is to get out of the waystop requiring one-acre lots and two-car garages, and stop blocking low-income and high-density projects.12. Washington politicians, on the other hand, have the federal budget at their disposal. But Congress hasnt supported new construction since the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit of 1986, which creates nearly 100,000 units of affordable housing a year, enough to replace half the units that are torn down or converted to market rents. Bush proposed a home-ownership tax credit during his 2000 and 2004 campaigns, but it turned out to be the rare tax cut he didnt pursue. A bill pending in Congress would divert a percentage of profits from federally chartered institutions such as Fannie Mae to a national affordable-housing trust fund, but it seems stalled. The only affordability ideas with any traction at the national level are not really housing ideas; for example, one way to make housing more affordable to workers would be to raise their incomesthrough higher minimum wages, lower payroll taxes or an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.13. There is one clear solution to the affordable-housing crisis: a real estate crash. Its the one housing issue that attracts media attentionbecause it would hurt the Owns. But while an easing of prices could be devastating for lower-income Owns with risky mortgages, it probably wouldnt bring home ownership within reach for many Own- Nots. Prices have too far to fall; in 2000, two-thirds of the home sales in Fairfax were for $250,000 or less, but last year, fewer than one-twentieth were. And even a modest price slump could trigger a construction slowdown that would make shortages of affordable housing for moderate-income families even worse.14. Eventually, politicians may rediscover housingnot as an urban poverty issue, but as a middle-class quality-of-life issue, like gas prices or health care. Home ownership is often described as the American dream, but these days many workers would settle for a decent rental that wont bankrupt their families.unit 9-Housing crisis goes suburban.doc 的翻译在过去的五年中，住房价格在弗吉尼亚州费尔法克斯县增长12倍的速度为家庭收入。如今，全县的平均家庭将不得不花费其收入的54，得到了县里的普通家庭，2000年，这一数字为26。形势如此严峻的费尔法克斯最近开始提供住房补贴的家庭年收入90000美元，很快，这个数字可能会高达每年$ 110,000元。住房危机GOES SUBURBA迈克尔格伦沃尔德1。70年之后富兰克林罗斯福总统宣布大萧条已经离开三分之一的美国人“生病安置，不良穿衣和虐待的滋养，”美国人是良好的丰衣足食和越来越多滋养。但保障性住房的稀缺性是一个民族危机加深，而不是只为福利市内家庭。这个问题已经爬上了梯子的收入，搬到郊区，那里的服务人员塞进他们的家庭陷入拥挤的公寓，大学毕业生要崩溃与他们的父母，和消防队员，警察和教师不能住在他们服务的社区。2。自置居所附近的历史新高，但差距正在之间的旗下拥有和自己的穷国，以及该公司旗下拥有和自有-80-万里-从工作越来越多。三分之一的美国人现在花费其收入的至少30的住房，一个“负担不起”的负担联邦政府的定义，以及一半的工作穷人花费其收入的至少50的租金，一个“关键”的负担。在过去十年的房地产热潮已经产生暴利的美国人谁拥有它开始之前，但经济适用房现在是更多的低收入和中等收入的美国人的一个严重的问题不是税收，社会保障或天然气的价格。3，美国用于照顾了很多关于经济适用房。罗斯福签署住房立法在1934年和1937年，提供抵押贷款，政府公寓和建筑工作的工人倒在自己的运气。1949年，美国国会。设定的官方目标F“一个得体的家庭并为每一个美国家庭一个合适的居住环境”，并于1974年，尼克松总统开始提供补贴的租金优惠券以百万计的私人房屋的低收入租户。半个世纪以来，大多数住房的辩论在华盛顿围绕着多大的扩大联邦援助。4。但在过去的二十年中，只有新的联邦住房主动权一直HOPE VI5，已拆除80000台最差的公共住房，并内置混合收入发展自己的地方克林顿政府的计划。该方案已经消除了大部分给了公共住房的名声，并已恢复了一些城市街区高楼hellholes的。但它已被夷为平地更多资助的公寓比它已经取代了。5。总体而言，接受联邦援助的家庭数量自年初以来flatlined20世纪90年代，尽管不断增长的人口和膨胀的预算。美国国会已经拒绝了大多数美国总统布什提出的削减，但一直存在的升幅几乎没有任何讨论;保障性住房的倡导者花费其大部分时间的战斗，以维持现状。6。这是一个艰难的现状。今天，每一个接受联邦住房援助的450万低收入家庭，有三个符合条件的家庭没有它。费尔法克斯县有一个等待名单4000辅助式公寓1.2万个家庭。“这是金色的，当你得到一个没有人愿意放弃它，”康拉德伊根，费尔法克斯房屋委员会主席说。这听起来很奇怪，但今天的住房危机的受害者是不是生活在“项目”的人，但人谁都不那么幸运。7。一些自由主义者的梦想延伸补贴给所有符合条件的低收入家庭，但那1,000十亿的一年的解决方案是不现实的，甚至在预算赤字再次激增。因此，即使一些住房的倡导者现在支持大多数的联邦租金援助的时间限制。包括在社会福利改革限制在10年前的时候曾引起争议，但研究表明，他们已经帮助激发受助人下车领取失业救济金。而不像福利，住房援助是不是一个联邦的权利，所以几年后拿走它从一个家庭将提供一个同样值得家人休息。8。“这是一个没有脑子，”大卫史密斯，在波士顿的保障性住房的倡导者说。“你不能承受的没有限制的内部矛盾。”9。这个问题的根源是需求和经济适用