And so the answer to the housing affordability query: rental housing can be difficult if not impossible for minimum wage earners to afford. Furthermore, teachers, fire and police officers, librarians, secretaries, lab technicians and others who comprise the very fabric of our society find it difficult, if not impossible, to purchase or even rent a home in Virginia's larger cities. What are the answers to the pressing housing affordability challenges we face?
There is no suggestion that states or localities should - on their own - step in to replace on a dollar-for-dollar basis previous federal housing allocations. The best solutions are likely those in which federal, state and local governments join forces with the private sector, foundations, religious and civic organizations, and non-profit community development corporations to preserve and produce affordable housing.
Virginia's $47.5 million Housing Partnership Fund appropriation in the 1989-90 biennium has leveraged another $60 million from the private and public sectors and non-profit groups. In Newport News, Hampton and elsewhere on the Peninsula, the Partnership Fund is at work providing emergency home repair for the elderly; helping non-profits build their capacity for housing delivery; producing new single family units; rehabilitating single family and multifamily dwellings; expanding emergency shelter bed space and supporting the work of the shelters; and preventing those who would be homeless through no fault of their own from becoming homeless.
The roster of accomplishments is as substantive as it is inspiring, but much work remains to realize the Housing Study Commission's goal of safe, decent affordable housing for every Virginian.
Affordable housing is America's dream and Virginia's agenda. Many of the Housing Study Commission's best ideas have come directly from testimony received at public hearings. Those ideas today can be found in the form of housing programs and legislation in effect across the commonwealth.
And it's important to note that it would have difficult to translate those ideas into concrete realities had it not been for the inspired and inspiring support of housing advocates throughout Virginia. These supporters helped score decisive legislative victories by contacting their elected representatives by telephone and mail; by meeting with their legislators locally and in Richmond; and by attending House of Delegates and Senate committee hearings, prepared to testify on behalf of housing initiatives.
I URGE YOU to play an active role in the legislative process. I also urge you to advise your elected and appointed officials - at the local, state and federal levels - of the importance of adequate affordable housing. I also urge you to monitor local, state and federal developments on such issues as land use and growth management controls, tax policy, social services, the budget-making processes and other subjects in which decisions can significantly affect the cost and availability of housing.
Individually and collectively, we have the ability and the opportunity to build on our momentum and quicken the pace of our progress in preserving and producing affordable housing; to stimulate growing awareness and understanding of housing issues; and to forge new housing partnerships.
It has been my experience - and, no doubt, yours, too - that dreams can become a very real agenda, and then they can become reality. I am confident that, working together, we can realize the dream all Virginians have of living in safe, decent, affordable housing.