Fairfax County taxpayers are being forced to subsidize so-called “affordable housing” that includes luxurious amenities many of them cannot afford to provide their own families. That’s the conclusion of an eye-opening new study by the Springfield-based Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan research and education organization. As TJIPP President Michael Thompson notes, most taxpayers envision government-subsidized housing as “a nice, clean ‘starter home’ in a middle-class neighborhood … with Formica countertops and parking on the street.” Such a place gives hard-working heads of households a needed boost for a few years as they work their way up the economic ladder and eventually buy a home of their own. But some of the county’s 3,600 affordable housing units are far from basic.
Eight taxpayer-subsidized townhomes in Falls Church priced at $145,000 abut market-priced units worth $860,000 in an upscale neighborhood that many Fairfax residents could only dream of living in some day. Residents of tax-subsidized condos in Herndon enjoy granite and stainless steel kitchens, soaking tubs, a resort-style pool and spa, a 24-hour athletic center and a billiards room. At Dunn Loring, affordable housing units are located in a complex whose elegant lobby sports marble floors and a crystal chandelier. Residents there get free parking even though they live right across the street from a Metro station.
None of these amenities comes cheap. According to an audit requested by Supervisor Pat Herrity, R-Springfield, the condo and association fees alone cost Fairfax taxpayers nearly $1.5 million. Three years ago, Herrity slammed the board’s decision to build 270 subsidized apartments known as the Residences at Government Center when more modest, privately owned rental units were sitting vacant. “I consider pools, spas, rec rooms, weight rooms and rooms with Wii systems to be luxury,” Herrity said at the time.
Board Chairwoman Sharon Bulova, Democrat, defended the county’s policy of forcing taxpayers to subsidize luxury housing for people making up to 100 percent of the area’s median income ($102,499 for a family of three), claiming it “prevents the creation of pockets of poverty.” But there’s a lot of wiggle room between a ghetto and “affordable housing” so posh that residents making six-figure incomes have no incentive to get off the dole. And in part because there’s no literally end to the demand for such upscale accommodations at below-market rents, affordable housing has become very unaffordable for Fairfax County taxpayers who are footing the bill.
