Carefully consider before allowing ‘affordable housing’ project
I have worked in public schools where some of the population lived in “affordable housing projects.”
On a typical school day a handful of students would come to school crying or full or rage because of the things they have to wake up to on a daily basis in their neighborhoods: gunfire, prostitution, physical altercations and drugs deals. Can you imagine being raised in a neighborhood where one of these terrible events occur at least once a week? I can’t and I don’t think any child deserves to either.
As a community we have a responsibility to put our foot down and say this is not an acceptable way to allow our children to be raised. But this is the reality of many children every day in “affordable housing projects.” Yes, I am a proponent of everyone having an affordable place to live but not 59 “low income families in a concentrated area. This strategy doesn’t work. A short 27 miles away in Annapolis is living proof of failing “lower-income communities”: Robin Wood, Newtowne, and Eastport Terrace to mention a few.
If a developer is acting in a socially responsible capacity and genuinely wanted to give back to a community and its lower income families then an approach that is sustainable and beneficial to help them to become productive members of society should be researched and implemented.
Don’t hide behind politics and play bureaucratic games and build a complex of rental units. Build a series of single-family homes that can be purchased for reduced prices throughout good neighborhoods allowing good morals and values to be instilled in the children.
Personally, I love our county’s schools and that is one of the reasons my family lives here. Research shows that in 2010 the middle schools within the areas of the other Osprey Communities were not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in reading and mathematics.
This should be compared with Centreville Middle School, which met every aspect of AYP in 2010. I feel we are setting families and children up for failure if we continue to build complexes such as Riverwoods anywhere, especially Centreville. It is a terrible approach and not justification for helping people.
Joe Rose
Centreville