Low Income Housing

[Leah]

Going in a slightly different direction:

It seems as though we overbuild in situations other than just low income.  There are plenty of vacant homes and commercial properties, yet it seems there is always something new being built.  I wish we as a community would just use what we have.  I hate seeing vacant buildings in any neighborhood.  Especially when all the building just contributes to the suburban sprawl in the area.  If someone in Mahoning county wants to move to "the middle of nowhere" but still stay close by, they are almost guaranteed that the "middle of nowhere" will surely be "somewhere" with-in the next 10 years.  New Middletown is a great example of that.   Boardman and Poland are creeping their way in to what used to be country.

[jay]

I found another aspect of the Neighborhood Reinvestment workshop interesting.  One speaker more or less said that Youngstown doesn't need additional low income housing.  There are thousands of existing homes that are within reach of low income families.  It is a case of 'you get what you build for,' and the community ends up building more low income housing to compete with the low income housing that already exists all over the city.