Creating more housing is good for business, and creating more affordable housing is particularly good for business. Without adequate shelter, it is virtually impossible to live a safe, healthy, and productive life. The ability of businesses to attract and retain their work force is key to success, and housing that is both available and affordable is a key to attraction and retention of employees.
Arizonans making the state minimum wage must work two full-time jobs, effectively, to afford a market-value two-bedroom apartment, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s (NLIHC) 2019 report.
Employees who make less won’t be able to afford to come here to work, and those who are here now will be looking elsewhere for less expensive places to live. Both of these outcomes are bad for business. As customers, workers who spend a high percentage of their income for rent can’t purchase the goods and services that fuel our economic engine. People who are suffering the effects of homelessness are similarly unable to be good customers for local businesses.
Further, homelessness often leads to repetitive use of services, like frequent emergency room visits, that are more costly to our public budgets than the alternative of providing permanent affordable housing. The financial consequence leaves fewer resources available for infrastructure investment, such as road repairs, which in turn lessens the appeal of Sonoma County-again bad for business.
The cure for homelessness is permanent housing that is both affordable and linked to necessary services. Once in stable housing, people can be helped with education and training to improve their skills, creating a more robust labor market, which is again…good for business.
In summary, local business will benefit from an economy in which customers are plentiful and have disposable income for discretionary spending, and in which productive workers are available for career employment. These conditions are served by creating the affordable housing essential for our shared prosperity.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors “currently uses a modified “pay-as-you-go” financial policy for large capital improvement projects and other infrastructure. Through this method, capital improvements are paid from the County’s current revenue base. The County pays cash for many capital improvements or utilizes lease reversions or other funding sources from the General Fund to pay for large dollar projects.”
If we don’t have the cash, we don’t make improvements or investments. Maricopa County hasn’t had a bond since 2004. Why not ask the voters if they’re willing to invest in affordable housing through a bond request on the ballot? This is how most other municipalities operate.
Supervisors claim they are saving the taxpayers money by not paying interest on bonds, but the interest on a bond for improving our affordable housing would be less than the $178 million we spent on Arpaio lawsuits for legal violations the Supervisors knew about but refused to mitigate through policy corrections.
Surely taxpayers would rather pay interest on bonds that benefit their family, friends, neighbors, businesses, communities, and property values than unnecessary attorney fees and court fines. We should ask them.