Free Workshop for Adults 60+ Covers Affordable Housing Application Tools

[kmontgomery]

Free Workshop for Older Adults - Affordable Housing Application Tools


Be empowered, informed and supported by a panel of experts. This workshop will provide:


Housing Application Strategies
Quick Housing Guide for Sonoma County
Rental Resume & Property Manager Letter of Introduction Templates
Affordable Rental Property Listings
Best Practices

"When my spouse died, I discovered I could not afford to stay in my home. I had no idea there were waiting lists to access affordable rentals"

[DreadTori]

I just have to laugh at this. Most of the time I feel like crying.....

I’ve been on the county’s affordable/HUD housing/section 8 list for 7 years and now I’m shoved off along with everyone else so the county can have people sign up again and hopefully get picked in a lottery for 500 spaces. There were over TWENTY SIX THOUSAND people on the county list, but now there will only be 500 on a list who MIGHT get a home? This is how the problem of too many of us low income folks in this area get housing?
This is profoundly unfair for those of us who have been updating our info every year, as requested, so we could stay on the list.

I’m also on several specific lists at different housing places in the county & have been told to expect to wait at least 8-10 years for an affordable place.

I’m a low income senior and, fortunately, right now, I live with someone who has been generous & keeps my share of the rent as low as she can. I still spend half my income on rent. This is after working my entire life, saving for my retirement and then seeing 75% of it disappear in the crash, then get laid off at age 59 & having to use what I had left to pay for housing. I’m 67 and I want to retire. That’s not possible now. And I know lots of seniors in exactly the same circumstances.

These workshops to help people sign up are exercises in futility. I’ve been to plenty of them over the years; I get put on a list and then I’m told that it will probably take a decade or more before my name will get to the top of the list.

What a waste of my time.


Free Workshop for Older Adults - Affordable Housing Application Tools


Be empowered, informed and supported by a panel of experts. This workshop will provide:


Housing Application Strategies
Quick Housing Guide for Sonoma County
Rental Resume & Property Manager Letter of Introduction Templates
Affordable Rental Property Listings
Best Practices

"When my spouse died, I discovered I could not afford to stay in my home. I had no idea there were waiting lists to access affordable rentals"

[rossmen]

Understand that from a government mindset outreach = action. So for the county to spend money hosting a workshop to expand ten year waiting lists for old people to have an affordable home, that's doing something. It might not solve anyone's problem, but at least something is being done. And it provides purpose for the organizing agency!

I just have to laugh at this. Most of the time I feel like crying.....

I’ve been on the county’s affordable/HUD housing/section 8 list for 7 years and now I’m shoved off along with everyone else so the county can have people sign up again and hopefully get picked in a lottery for 500 spaces. There were over TWENTY SIX THOUSAND people on the county list, but now there will only be 500 on a list who MIGHT get a home? This is how the problem of too many of us low income folks in this area get housing?
This is profoundly unfair for those of us who have been updating our info every year, as requested, so we could stay on the list.

I’m also on several specific lists at different housing places in the county & have been told to expect to wait at least 8-10 years for an affordable place. ...

[DreadTori]

It’s a frigging merry go round that the government puts people on when it comes to signing up
on these lists. It gives people false hope and it’s CRUEL. Personally, I think doing this kind of nasty shit to people is unconscionable. Just so they can say, “See, we’re doing something about affordable housing!” When they’re doing nothing really to help people, but they ARE harming people psychologically. It’s disgusting.

Understand that from a government mindset outreach = action. ...

[Dorothy Friberg]

Oops, Rossmen; sounds like you drank the Kool aid. I have been working with the 'homeless' situation going to endless planning meetings, etc. At a 'Homeless Summit" some three years ago, projections were that it would take 8 months to get things moving. In the meantime large buildings remain empty and underutilized (i.e. the old hospital on Chanate). These programs employ people who schedule endless meetings, even feeding lunch to attendees. It is a matter of "everyone talking about the weather but no one is doing anything about it". In the meantime county employees continue to pretend that they are doing something while ranking up their precious retirement plans (which we all pay for) and cashing their regular paychecks. These are do nothing committees. We have yet to see the money spent on the REAL needs of our community.


Understand that from a government mindset outreach = action. So for the county to spend money hosting a workshop to expand ten year waiting lists for old people to have an affordable home, that's doing something. It might not solve anyone's problem, but at least something is being done. And it provides purpose for the organizing agency!

[podfish]

Oops, Rossmen; sounds like you drank the Kool aid..I think you missed his point. If I understood it, he's only saying that from the point of view of local government, the fact they're hosting workshops means that they're doing something. From the point of view of people who need things to actually change, it doesn't feel like it. 'Cuz it isn't, really.. I think this is yet another case of irony not surviving contact with the internet.