The Borough's Burden, Part 4

The Bright Hope public housing complex on Pottstown's west side, formerly called Penn Village, is operated by the Montgomery County Housing Authority and represents one way low-income housing is concentrated in Pottstown and other older traditional towns.

What Role Does Public Housing Play?

This is the $64,000 question in Pottstown.

We should begin by understanding that not all of this high concentration low-income housing can be laid at the feet of public housing, whether it be in the form of Section 8 Housing or public housing projects like Bright Hope.

Mercury Photo by Kevin Hoffman

Montgomery County Commissioners Chairman Josh Shapiro,

left, addresses the Pottstown crowd last month. At right are

commissioners Bruce Castor and Leslie Richards.

When the Montgomery County Commissioners visited Pottstown last month, Commissioners Chairman Josh Shapiro pointed out that Pottstown has a lower concentration of Section 8 vouchers than is often proclaimed.

I have no reason to doubt that information.

But not all low-income housing is public housing and what he could NOT deny, and which the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission study we began examining yesterday and will continue to draw from today confirms, is that public or not, there IS a concentration of poor and low-income housing here in Pottstown.

And the burden that Pottstown bears from that concentration is equally heavy, whether that low-income housing comes from a public source or not.

Photo by Evan Brandt

Joel Johnson, the executive director of the Montgomery

County Housing Authority also spoke at that Pottstown meeting.

When the police are called to a low-income home for a domestic, a drug call or other disturbance that so often accompanies such households, it costs taxpayers the same, whether their rent is paid through public vouchers or not.

When a child from Bright Hope needs an IEP from the school district and a specialized one-on-one aid to give him or her the best leg up on keeping up with their education, it costs taxpayers the same whether their rent is paid through public vouchers or not.

And when we complain to public officials about Section 8, it is only because that portion of the low-income housing burden is the only portion we can hope to directly affect by appealing to those public officials who are answerable to us and can, hopefully, do something about it.

OK, so enough preaching from the mount.

Back to some more facts from the DVRPC report, "The Mismatch Between Housing and Jobs," issued in 2011.

For those of you who haven't been following along, we began working through this report in yesterday's post and today are posting the sections I pulled out of that report that contain numbers, facts and assumptions about how the region handles publicly assisted housing.

As with yesterday's post, what appears below was taken directly from the report, but is not necessarily posted in the same order as the report. Anything in bold is my own emphasis or additional comment.

The Montgomery County Housing Authority operates 615 housing units; the Bucks County Housing Authority operates 742 housing units; and the Chester County Housing Authority operates 331 public housing units. 

There are 331 public housing units in Chester County, managed by the Chester County Housing Authority. These are located in the City of Coatesville, Phoenixville Borough, Oxford Borough, South Coatesville, and West Chester Borough. Almost 1,600 assisted housing units are also located in the county, all within 14 municipalities located primarily along the Route 30 and Route 322 corridors. 

In Montgomery County, 615 public rental units are managed by the Montgomery County Housing Authority. Public housing units are concentrated within six municipalities in the county, three of which are older boroughs along the Schuylkill River (the Boroughs of Conshohocken, Royersford, and Pottstown) and two of which are well-developed suburban townships (Upper Moreland and Upper Dublin). An additional 3,500 subsidized units are located throughout the county. 

Between 2009 and 2010 approximately 53,650 Housing Choice Vouchers (the new name for Section 8 ) were allocated in Greater Philadelphia. The rationale behind the Housing Voucher Choice Program is to give low-income families an opportunity to move to moderate and median-income areas where they can better access jobs and secure a better education for their children. 

The five southeastern Pennsylvania counties are allotted 26,209 certificates and vouchers (49 percent of the region’s total). Housing Choice Vouchers and certificates are also administered by the other five Pennsylvania housing authorities of the City of Chester (1,586), Bucks County (3,398), Chester County (1,521), Delaware County (3,086), and Montgomery County (1,480).  

Public Housing in Montgomery County:
Pottstown -- 632 units
Norristown -- 546
Lansdale: -- 647 

Public Housing in Chester County"
Coatesville – 510
Phoenixville – 107
Spring City -- 190 

The most common perception and concern of those opposed to affordable residential development in their communities is that the presence of subsidized housing or tenants with rental assistance leads to declining property value.

Several studies, however, conclude that the impact of federally subsidized housing on nearby property values is not always negative, but varies by type of unit and by type of community.

One study that reviewed the impacts of subsidized housing in New York City, for example, found that units subsidized under the federal Section 202 program (housing for the elderly) or constructed using Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) had a positive impact on property values that then remained stable over time.

For Section 8 and public housing, the same study found that the impact on property values was relatively minor for smaller scale projects and that any negative impact on values typically occurred within the first three years after project completion and then dissipated.

Another study noted that affordable housing developments that replace vacant, abandoned, or otherwise blighted conditions generate positive impacts on surrounding properties, and stressed that good management and housing maintenance is critical to sustaining property values.

Good property maintenance (of both affordable and market rate developments) and proactive property code enforcement are key to maintaining neighborhoods. Units subsidized under the Housing Voucher Choice program are inspected annually and landlords must agree to correct any deficiencies within a limited time in order to continue to receive their subsidy.

Housing advocates note that this requirement (if properly enforced) can result in a Section 8 rental unit being better maintained than another unit rented through an absentee landlord in the same neighborhood without a subsidy.

Some studies do suggest, however, that there is some threshold (in terms of either number of units or scale of the project) where an over-concentration of subsidized units in one community, particularly of tenant-based subsidies, may result in stagnant or declining property values. This threshold is difficult to define and most likely varies by community, depending on the existing characteristics of both the neighborhood and the tenants.

Past and current housing policies that concentrate affordable housing assistance in distressed communities, although well-intended, have unintentionally contributed to suburban sprawl and contributed to disinvestment in cities and older suburbs.

Public housing residents pay 30 percent of their monthly income toward the rent and the federal operating subsidy makes up the remaining difference. The operating subsidy funding received each fiscal year is often not sufficient to cover actual operating costs, which can lead to poor maintenance of public housing units.

The Section 8 program, now referred to as the Housing Choice Voucher Program, assists low-income households, defined as those earning 50 percent or less of the median income.

Housing vouchers may be used for any unit where the owner agrees to participate and where the unit satisfies the standards set by the local housing authority (This puts the responsibility for maintenance and standards squarely in the lap, in Pottstown's case, of the Montgomery County Housing Authority.) 

Under the current program guidelines, HUD pays the difference between what a low-income family can afford to pay towards their rent (defined as 30 percent of their adjusted income or 10 percent of their gross income, whichever is higher) and an approved fair market rent for an adequate housing unit. Landlords who agree to participate in the program are required to allow the housing authority to inspect the unit annually.

Although the intent of the Housing Choice Voucher program is to enable low-income tenants to use the subsidy for a unit in a location of their choice, the Fair Market Rent limit realistically encourages their use primarily in places with the lowest housing costs (including cities, boroughs, and older suburbs).

Counties and local jurisdictions that receive Community Development Block Grants, HOME , and other types of federal funds are required to comply with the federal Fair Housing Act and the requirements of the Community Development Act.

Which brings us back to this. Does THIS look like fair housing choice?

These regulations require that the county or municipality affirmatively further fair housing to the maximum extent possible. Under these requirements, every jurisdiction receiving federal community development funding must (1) conduct an analysis of impediments to fair housing choice; (2) take appropriate actions to overcome the effects of impediments identified through that analysis; and (3) maintain records reflecting actions they’ve taken and their accomplishments to date.

A 2009 court decision involving Westchester County, New York, emphasized the seriousness of fulfilling this requirement.

In February 2009 a federal judge ruled that Westchester County had failed to conduct an adequate analysis of impediments and had taken no steps whatsoever to further fair housing while continuing to receive HUD funding, despite clear racial segregation throughout their communities. In July 2011, after repeatedly rejecting revised analyses of impediments submitted by the County, HUD stopped providing community development funds to the County and is currently pursuing additional action, including the possible restitution of previously awarded funding.

Low Income Housing Tax Credit

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 established the LIHTC to encourage the construction and rehabilitation of rental housing for low income persons. LIHTC accounts for nearly 90 percent of all affordable rental housing created in the United States today. 

Photo by Kevin Hoffman

Mary Beth Lydon, now Mary Beth Bacallao, protested the 

proposed senior housing project in 2010. She is now a 

member of the Pottstown School Board.

(Some may recall, this was the program that, in 2010, was going to be used to construct the low-income senior housing project along Industrial Avenue, a project which was considered controversial and was ultimately denied by the state, even though borough council voted to support it.) 

The tax credit is available to owners of and investors in rental housing for up to 10 years as a dollar-for-dollar reduction of federal tax income liability, provided that the rental housing project remains in compliance with occupancy and rent requirements for a 15-year compliance period.

The LIHTC program is one of the largest funding sources available to local Community Development Corporations (CDCs) for the development and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing. 

Most states (including New Jersey and Pennsylvania) usually allocate low-income housing credits to cities and older suburbs. This policy is well-intended but has played a role in creating concentrations of poverty, encouraging suburban sprawl, and exacerbating the mismatch between these older areas and their surrounding growing suburbs.

In general, Pennsylvania has not been proactive in requiring municipalities to provide affordable housing for low and moderate income families. One exception is the 1975 case of Township of Willistown v. Chesterdale Farms (341 A. 2d 46), in which the Pennsylvania courts ruled that the local zoning ordinance was exclusionary because it did not allow any acreage for apartment construction and thus excluded a lower-income population which could rent but not purchase.

Improving the financial status and quality of life in the region’s cities and older suburbs requires revisions to the current property tax structure as well as housing policies and programs.

The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) released a report in 2001, The New Economy and Jobs/Housing Balance in Southern California, which found that balancing housing and jobs in a defined geography has numerous environmental benefits, lowers infrastructure costs, and improves family stability. 

The same study found that an excess amount of the region’s vacant land had been zoned for commercial and industrial purposes relative to their forecasted housing needs for the Year 2025, which would undoubtedly exacerbate the mismatch.

By providing an analysis of zoned land for future uses, local governments can plan for the appropriate number and type of housing units in proximity to existing and future employment centers.

A new approach is needed, one that recognizes that public policies and funding streams can catalyze a more balanced and sustainable approach to housing that will benefit older and newer communities, workers and employers, and the region as a whole.

Tomorrow, we will conclude with a look at the recommendations made in this report for ALL levels of government.

Until then, thanks for sticking with me on this...

The Borough's Burden, Part 3

According to this map from the DVRPC study, "The Mismatch Between Jobs and Housing," Pottstown has between 10 and 20 percent of its population living below the federal poverty line, just one of many indicators of the way current policies concentrate poor and needy people in the communities often least able to carry that burden.

The Weight

Welcome back.

This third installment to my potentially never-ending series of posts brings us to information that's a little closer to home -- a 2011 study by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission about the "mis-match between housing and jobs."

(Sorry for all the studies folks, but experts do look at this stuff and we might as well make use of the knowledge gained as a result. Better than it just sitting on a shelf.)

This study was undertaken at the behest of the First Suburbs Project of Southeastern Pennsylvania and confirmed much of what they have argued, that government policies and economics have had the unintended consequence of concentrating poorer housing and residents in older, established communities, away from jobs that pay good salaries.

After all, no one sets out to create the conditions under which we're now struggling. It's usually just an example of short-sighted policies and a mistaken belief, despite history's many reminders, that the good times will never end.

So I looked through this study more than  a year ago and made a set of notes in the hopes of trying to drive a larger, regional series of stories among our several newspapers that looked at these issues, and at housing authorities in particular.

Pottstown also has a higher concentration of children

living below the federal poverty line, thus requiring more

expensive services from a school system dependent on an

eroding property tax base. 

Sadly, the will, the time, the staff and the money to pay that staff never materialized to make that happen.

Luckily for you loyal reader, I rarely throw anything away (as a photo of my desk would attest) so I have it at hand for presentation here, in a somewhat less refined form.

Rather than re-write all this stuff and pretend it's all original, I have pasted relevant sections I lifted for my notes and strung them together into a kind of logical narrative.

(Those things I have bolded are my own emphasis or comment.Remember, the order in which they appear here are not necessarily the order in which they appear in the report.)

Although well-intended, past and current federal and state housing policies support suburban homeownership and have resulted in concentrations of low and moderately priced housing in older developed communities.

The creation of geographic imbalances between housing and jobs is largely the effect of suburbanization. Prior to the 1950s, the Greater Philadelphia region formed around employment opportunities located in the central business district, modern day Center City.

Housing developed in suburban areas adjacent to the city and commuting to Center City for work was facilitated with the development of publicly-funded highways and transit service.

Today, with the lack of (easily) developable land for light industrial and commercial sites in the central business district and the lure of large expanses of vacant, relatively inexpensive, and developable land in the suburbs, more lower-wage jobs are relocating to suburban locations that lack transit-accessibility. Many of these communities are often higher-end “bedroom” communities that lack the affordable housing opportunities appropriate for the entry-level and low-income labor force. 

By contrast, existing infrastructure and transit service, affordable housing choices, and the availability of necessary services make cities and older suburbs logical choices for low and moderate individuals and families searching for a home, with or without financial assistance.

This map shows that Pottstown has the highest concentration
in the region of people without cars, making it much harder
for them  to get to a job that pays a living wage.

Many of the region’s largest employment centers, however, are located in the growing suburbs, in places that lack both affordable housing opportunities and transit access. Concentrations of low and moderate income households in cities and older suburbs result in a mismatch between the locations of jobs and labor, with entry-level and lower income workers living far from suburban job centers. 

Additionally, the concentration of affordable housing in the region’s cities and older suburbs corresponds to concentrations of disadvantaged populations. Disadvantaged households living in older cities and suburbs are often isolated from opportunity, both in terms of finding and maintaining a job and moving up the housing ladder.

Concentrations of low and moderately priced homes impact the municipal tax base and, given the current reliance on property taxes as the primary source of funding for public services (especially education), place an unfair financial burden on these communities.

Pottstown has a high concentration of single-parent households

A reduced tax base and the resulting impact on tax revenue impedes the community’s ability to provide a quality education system, invest in necessary infrastructure repairs, and meet social service demands.

(The communities are also often the only  place single-parent families can afford to live. Statistically, children of these families need more in terms of special educational services and thus cost more to educate in a system already struggling with diminished property tax revenues.)

As a result, many of the region’s cities and first suburbs find it even more difficult to attract market-rate housing, further compounding the problem. The attractiveness of the inner ring communities is reduced and both residential and commercial development sprawl outward into the suburbs, perpetuating the cycle of disinvestment and continuing a downward cycle that reduces the region’s overall attractiveness and competitiveness. 

Homeownership rates are highest in the suburban counties, especially in the most recently developed municipalities in Gloucester, Burlington, Bucks, and Chester counties. The highest renter-occupancy rate is evidenced in the City of Philadelphia, where over 45 percent of the occupied housing stock is occupied by renters. 

(By way of reference, the population of Pottstown is about 40 percent renters, so not much different from Philadelphia.)

In this map: Pottstown has the highest concentration of

households living in poverty in the entire area.

In the Pennsylvania counties, the highest housing values are found in Central Bucks County (Solebury, Buckingham and Upper Makefield townships and New Hope and Wrightstown boroughs); Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County; Radnor and Edgemont in Delaware County; and West Pikeland, Easttown, and Birmingham townships in Chester County. 

DVRPC has analyzed housing affordability in Greater Philadelphia several times in the past. The conclusion has consistently been the same: the region’s most affordable housing (both renter and owner-occupied) has typically been located in places least accessible to suburban employment centers and where the housing stock is generally of poorer quality.

Municipal-level maps provided in the appendices (some of which I have posted here) illustrate that lower income households and people living in poverty are concentrated in the region’s cities (including the smaller cities of Coatesville and Chester City in Pennsylvania and Beverly City in New Jersey), and older boroughs (including Darby, Bridgeport, Colwyn, Pottstown, Norristown, and Marcus Hook in Pennsylvania and Hi-Nella, Audubon Park, and Lawnside in New Jersey). 

Given the region’s dependence on property taxes as the primary source of local revenue, the overall strength of the local tax base directly affects the ability of local governments to provide quality services.

The tax bases of many of the region’s core cities and older developed communities are stagnant or declining, while, ironically, the number of low-income and dependent residents (including seniors) that require an increasing level of services continues to increase in these same areas. Increasing the property tax rate not only places an unfair cost burden on current homeowners, but also higher taxes and reduced services resulting from a lack of resources perpetuates the population and employment losses realized in many of these older communities in recent years. 

Ironically, the property taxes in the region’s older communities (which have the largest available supplies of low and moderately-priced housing) are often very high relative to housing value and the residents’ income. As property taxes rise in urban areas, lower-income households can have trouble paying their property tax bills and may become tax delinquent. 

(The areas outside Pottstown in the map below which are also blue, such as East Coventry, are likely home to senior housing and nursing homes, such as, in East Coventry's case, Manatawny Manor.)

Pottstown is also has a higher concentration of the elderly. 

As the financial burden on lower income families increases, many rental and owner occupied units can deteriorate, become vacant and fall out of the housing stock.

If the municipality responds by placing tax liens on these properties, developers may hesitate to rehabilitate them because they cannot recapture the cost of the rehabilitation or because of the extremely deep rental assistance subsidies needed for tenants to occupy the units. Local property tax policies often discourage the replacement of these affordable rental units.

Areas most at risk of foreclosure include locations in and immediately surrounding the cities of Philadelphia, Trenton, Camden, and Coatesville and Pottstown Borough. 

The opposite also holds true in communities that are less developed and have available vacant land. Although land is available in these communities that could theoretically be used for needed residential development (especially higher density rentals) these communities are often not served by transit to provide access to jobs and services.
Higher property taxes in these communities are often offset by the higher average annual income of the residents and higher housing value.

We also have a higher number of disabled residents.

The high cost of providing services and its consequent impact on property tax rates encourage municipalities to zone their land for uses that place the fewest demands on the school system and other municipal services.

(In the tax ratables chase in which so many municipalities here engage,) Single-family residential is preferred over higher density family residential; commercial development and other employment generating uses are preferred over any residential. 

Multi-family rental housing is often viewed as particularly undesirable because it disproportionately increases the demand for local services while generating comparably little tax revenue. 

Commercial uses generate significant tax revenue while demanding fewer services than residential development, thrusting communities into a chase for the highest and best ratables. 

So as illuminating as all of this is, it mostly confirms that the conditions locally meet the criteria set out in national studies which we looked at in the previous post.

The next logical question is the one we will address in tomorrow's post and the one which consumes much of Pottstown's discussions of how we get back on our feet -- what role does public housing policy play within the context of these burdens?

See you tomorrow.

The Borough's Burden Part 1

As I opined in a Feb. 10 post in this space, I have come to the belief that the root of Pottstown's many problems revolve around the issues raised by the First Suburbs Project  housing, education and infrastructure, and of course jobs.

As I began writing this post, which deals almost exclusively with housing it became so lengthy that I realized no one would read it, so I have instead broken it up into more easily digestible installments.

The first of those begins below.

Rich Blocks, Poor Blocks

I suppose it really is true that a picture is worth a thousand words.

In regards to a recent debate going on here in Pottstown and cyberspace about  subsidized housing, I have found certain images which are very illustrative.

They come from a nifty new web site called "Rich Blocks, Poor Blocks."

Here is the link.

I suggest you go take a look for yourself as you can move around and zoom in much more than with the images I have posted below.

(I apologize for the poor quality of the images, they are simply a screen shot. When I contacted the folks at this site and asked them if there was a way to create a higher-quality image of a particular search, they said "not yet.")

The site takes information from the Census and the American Community Survey and color codes Census tracts by two important measures: income and rent.

So first take a look at average incomes in Pottstown borough.

As you can see, the redder and browner the color, the lower the median household income. This is, pardon the gallows humor, a whole new way to say that Pottstown is in the red.

Now pull back, and take a look at income in the region as a whole:

As you can see, older communities like Pottstown, Phoenixville, Reading, Royersford-Spring City and Norristown host a concentration of low-income households; islands of poverty quite literally surrounded by a sea of green.

(When public contracts are let and the "prevailing wage" is calculated based on the relative wealth of the "Philadelphia Area," which includes all the green above of Montgomery and Chester counties, you can see why its high, but is an additional burden in low-wage communities like Pottstown.)

Not surprisingly, the site's maps for average rents, found below, show a similar concentration of low rents in the same places as the low income colors above.

Here is the close-up of Pottstown:

In this case, the red colors show higher rents, in the $1,100 range, and the lighter colors the lower rents, in the $350 range. the lightest area includes Pottstown's public housing project, Bright Hope, where the rents are subsidized through the Montgomery County Housing Authority.

Not surprisingly, if you look at a page (below) from the study the Mosaic Community Land Trust presented to Pottstown Borough Council last year, you will see lots in the first ward, that match that tan area up there bounded by High Street, Hanover Street, Beech Street and Washington Street and how high the concentration of renters truly is.

Look closely and you will see several reasons rents there are so low, not least among them, the purple properties, which are rental properties with absentee landlords. The peach-colored lots are vacant and the brown ones are in foreclosure. The yellow lots are owner-occupied.

And here is a pull-back showing rents through the the entire region (make note of the light-colored areas in Pottstown, Reading, Spring  City and Royersford):

Needless to say, these things are not unrelated.

But while useful, these maps also clarify and confirm what most of us already know about Pottstown and the surrounding region.

They do not answer the important questions of how did it get this way and why?

Find out tomorrow in my next post.

Dear Commissioners, Let's Talk Price

Dear Montgomery County Commissioners Josh Shapiro, Leslie Richards and Bruce Castor:

Thanks for coming to Pottstown tomorrow night to hear what we have to say.

Hopefully, some of our more thoughtful residents will show up to greet you and help you understand what ails us.

In case they don't, it seems prudent to jot down a few thoughts for your consideration:

Well just one thought really. You see, as complex as modern life it, the issues here in Pottstown boil down to a pretty simple equation.

Concentration of low-income housing + lack of living wage jobs = high crime, high taxes and low quality of life.

Look, you need not waste too much time Monday night explaining to us why things are done this way.

We get it.

In a lot of ways, it makes sense for Montgomery County to steer its poor to places like Pottstown and Norristown.

After all, it's where all the social service agencies are located already (although that's a chicken-or-the-egg example if ever we saw one); they both have bus systems and people who can't afford cars can walk to places more easily than out in the middle of the cookie-cutter sub-divisions where you need a car to get your mail.

And when it comes to housing vouchers (read Section 8), then you spend less public money in places where the rents are cheaper. After all, those federal subsidies for housing vouchers are tax money as well; best to get the most bang for the public buck.

On the other side of the coin, you could hardly pick worse places to concentrate low-income housing than in places like Pottstown and Norristown, at least not in terms of what's best for those communities.

Those still hanging on by their fingernails to home-ownership and jobs there are doing so under the burden of the highest tax rates in the region,

They're sending their children to schools with more special needs students than the wealthy suburbs that surround them, all under a state aid formula that gives them less funding than those same wealthier neighbors.

Their children walk to those schools through streets with a higher crime rate than their quiet suburban neighbors, whose children ride to school in buses or SUVs.

They're protected by police forces that must feel like they're running to stand still in terms of keeping up with the constant crime that shadows all concentrations of low-income life.

And their classmates are living in sub-standard apartments because the housing authority and the borough both lack the resources to ensure those places are kept up to code.

In case I'm not being clear, here is a good summary of what the impact of the county's policy of sending low-income families here, courtesy of the Brookings Institute's Metropolitan Policy Program:

• Lead to increased crime rates and poor health outcomes. Crime rates, and particularly violent crime rates, tend to be higher in economically distressed inner-city neighborhoods.Faced with high crime rates, dilapidated housing stock, and the stress and marginalization of poverty, residents of very poor neighborhoods demonstrate a higher incidence of poor physical and mental health outcomes, like asthma, depression, diabetes, and heart ailments.
• Limit educational opportunity. Children in high-poverty communities tend to go to neighborhood schools where nearly all the students are poor and at greater risk of failure, as measured by standardized tests, dropout rates, and grade retention.Low performance owes not only to family background, but also to the negative effects high-poverty neighborhoods have on school processes and quality. Teachers in these schools tend to be less experienced, the student body more mobile, and additional systems must often be put in place to deal with the social welfare needs of the student body, creating further demands on limited resources.
• Reduce private-sector investment and increase prices for goods and services. High concentrations of low-income and low-skilled households in a neighborhood can make the community less attractive to private investors and employers, which may limit local job opportunities and ultimately create a “spatial mismatch” between low-income residents and employment centers. In addition, lack of business competition in poor neighborhoods can drive up prices for basic goods and services—like food, car insurance, utilities, and financial services—compared to what families pay in middle-income neighborhoods.
• Raise costs for local government. The concentration of poor individuals and families—which can result in elevated welfare caseloads, high rates of indigent patients at hospitals and clinics, and the need for increased policing—burdens the fiscal capacity of local governments and can divert resources from the provision of other public goods. In turn, these dynamics can lead to higher taxes for local businesses and non-poor residents.
• Hinder wealth building. Many residents in extreme-poverty neighborhoods own their home, yet neighborhood conditions in these areas can lead the market to devalue these assets and deny them the ability to accumulate wealth through the appreciations of house prices.Moreover, the presence of high-poverty neighborhoods can affect residents of the larger metropolitan area generally, depressing values for owner-occupied properties in the region by 13 percent on average.

To Pottstown residents, the Brookings Institute just described conditions in our town.

Pottstown might have absorbed a portion of this county-sponsored burden if it were still a thriving community in which people with high school educations made a living wage at the local plant.

Indeed, wages that could support a middle-class family in Pottstown would solve many problems here simultaneously.

But the days of the labor-intensive factory are gone forever.

This kind of work isn't around here anymore

Those who wish for their return must realize that the manufacturing that remains in America is extremely specialized and high-tech.

A high school education is rarely enough to secure one of those jobs.

Good jobs to have certainly, but those who work there can no longer walk down the street the day after graduation and sign up for a place on the assembly line.

In fact, the people who get those jobs are those best prepared by a superior education system, which brings us right back to the Catch-22 with which we live every day here in Pottstown.

So presuming the county commissioners can do little to bring jobs to Pottstown, what should we ask for, other than their apologies for the decades of neglect at the hands of a flawed housing policy?

So what can Josh Shapiro, Bruce Castor and Leslie Richards do for us?

What can they offer us when they arrive at 7 p.m. Monday at the Montgomery County Community College's West Campus here in town?

They're here on a "listening tour," with no other purpose than to hear what we have to say. So what should we say?

I propose the following:

Let us recognize the reality that any suggestion that more low-income housing be directed toward wealthier communities will never come to pass.

It's a fool's errand folks. That's where the money is, and no politician is going to get campaign donations from a community where they just located a low-income housing project like Bright Hope.

Fair? Sure. Likely? Never.

Further, let's recognize that people who live in low-income housing are people, not statistics. If they're voting on where to live with their vouchers, they are going to live where they feel comfortable and where their dollar goes furthest, just like the rest of us.

How happy is a family living on $30,000 likely to be surrounded by neighbors who all make $250,000?

Also, we must recognize that barring a major structural change in county government, Leslie, Josh and Bruce don't have full control over this issue.

The entity which sends us voucher upon voucher is the Montgomery County Housing Authority, an independent agency not under the control of the county commissioners. It's not a county department.

So even if they agreed to, the commissioners could not stem the flow of vouchers.

What is in their power, is to pay the price for the policy.

So let's look at this like the capitalists we all claim to be.

The truth of the matter is we're providing a service for Montgomery County.

We are taking in their tired, their hungry, their poor, so their wealthier constituents don't have to. There's a dollar value to that service.

The real problem is we just aren't charging enough and we're going out of business as a result.

It's not that hard to document the increased costs Pottstown and Norristown take on with each low-income voucher that crosses the borough line.

So let's demand a better price -- an agreed upon amount of county dollars that go to the borough and school district for each housing voucher that comes this way.

Fortunately for the county, the borough and the school district share the same borders, so the accounting will be easy.

In the schools, that money can ONLY be used to pay for special education costs, or tutors for low-income students in homes using vouchers.

In the borough, that money can ONLY be used for things related to the costs those vouchers bring:

• To pay for increased policing; 
• To pay for more (and better-trained) code inspection officers to ensure the buildings at which these vouchers are being used are kept up and not contributing to the degradation of the neighborhood;
• To pay for increased recreational opportunities for the children in those households, giving them a place to recreate other than the streets. (By happy coincidence, we have a community center located right in the center of town where such programs could be located);
• To pay for adult training programs to help the adults in these households get the jobs that exist today. (By happy coincidence, the previous county commissioners had the foresight to locate a college campus right here in town, which makes for a handy training location.)

Those are just a few suggestions for concrete things the county commissioners could do for this community.

But for Monday's "listening tour" to have any real value, I don't think the commissioners should leave Pottstown without having committed to real help.

Anything else will just be vague promises, happy talk and smoke.

Been there, done that. And we know what it's worth.