Affordable housing in Calcasieu focus of listening tour event
Published 7:48 am Wednesday, August 27, 2014
“I call people that need affordable housing at various levels the backbone and infrastructure of our communities,” Marla Newman said. “Where would we be if the day care didn’t open? Where would we be if Walgreens shut down because they couldn’t get clerks to fill prescriptions or the garbage didn’t get picked up? These are the folks that are critical to the existence of our communities.”
Newman is the executive director of the Louisiana Housing Alliance, and her comment could have been the theme for Tuesday’s LHA event. She was one of the alliance’s representatives visiting Lake Charles as part of the LHA’s annual listening tour. The event, in many ways, was a workshop, and it took place in the Allen P. August Multi-Purpose Center, at 2001 Moeling St. “Housing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s hard to have community without housing,” Newman said. “Housing is a huge piece of our communities.”
The event provided an open dialogue between local housing advocates, families, and city officials and the LHA representatives. The information gathered during the event was used to compile lists addressing the biggest local housing concerns. Each member in the audience was given a chance to talk about what he or she felt was one of the biggest factors slowing the housing progress in Calcasieu Parish. The list eventually included terms like funding, communication, mixed-income development and coalition building.
The audience was then broken down and put into groups. Each group was composed of people concerned about a specific housing issue on the list. Mixed-income development was the one issue that garnered the most input from the audience.
This group work aspect of the alliance’s annual event was relatively new. The groups were tasked with putting together action plans during the session that would help find solutions to some of their listed problems. As the groups worked, Newman talked about what it means when a community’s main concern deals with mixed-income development.
“That means there is a concern about housing and the perception that affordable housing may have,” Newman said. “It takes a concentrated effort by the community to do mixed-income development successfully.”
Information about housing in Southwest Louisiana was spread across tables near the back of the room. One document described the fair market rent for specific-size homes in the parish. The monthly and yearly amounts the household would have to bring in financially to make ends meet were also listed in the document.
“Here in Calcasieu, over 43 percent of renters pay more than 36 percent of their income on housing,” Newman said. “We have people that are probably stressed trying to pay rent here in Calcasieu Parish.”
Newman said LHA representatives will remain in contact with the housing advocates present at Tuesday’s meeting, assisting them in meeting the goals set in their action plan.
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Online:
http://lahousingalliance.org.