Affordable Housing

I went to a meeting at my local Y tonight about affordable housing and it was interesting. There isn't much "affordable" (depending on your definition of affordability) where I live. At the meeting tonight, one of the panelists said a studio apartment here averages about $1,200 per month and, in order to only have to spend 30% of your income to pay your monthly rent, you'd need to make about $50K per year to do that. And I don't live in Brooklyn anymore!!! It's getting harder and harder to find decent housing in a lot of places. But what kills me about Evanston, where I live, is that the so-called "affordable" housing (what little there is) is often placed in the black and brown communities, not in the northern part of town or near the Lake where the higher-priced homes are located. There's an affordable housing building going up in a mostly black part of the city and many people in that area complained. The powers that be around here claimed the building was placed in this particular neighborhood because it was close to pubic transit and shopping. It is, but there are other parts of the city that also have close public transit and shopping (i.e. largely wealthier, whiter neighborhoods) yet no affordable housing units were placed there. When you look at environmental issues also, like the water crisis in Flint, you know this kind of thing wouldn't have happened in a more affluent city. Grosse Pointe would never have this kind of problem nor would Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, or a host of other wealthy Michigan cities. The struggle is real, folks.