Timely, given my earlier post.
Anyway, I just think the "affordable housing" frame is just wrong. I want poor people to be able to afford to live places. They often can't, because they're poor. We have various "affordable housing" programs because they're more politically popular than "giving free money to people" programs, even if they're completely inadequate. But they're costly to administer, and more importantly... rents locally are actually quite cheap. This isn't New York or London or San Francisco. The problem isn't that housing is expensive, the problem is that poor people are poor.
I'm not against second best solutions if that's all that politics will allow, but what poor people in Philly really need is more money.
