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.