Berliner on Affordable Housing: ‘One of the Most Daunting Public Policy Issues We Face’ (VIDEO)
To help area leaders come up with solutions to tackle the issue, Berliner along with hundreds of housing advocates, county leaders and housing developers,gathered at the Bethesda North Marriott Conference Center on Friday for the 26th Annual Affordable Housing Summit.
“We believe that affordable housing is a right, not a privilege,” Berliner said. “People ought to be able to live in our community.”
The event was organized by the Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County. Organizers said Friday’s seminar was about protecting and supporting Montgomery County families.
“Demand for housing has never been higher and what that means is unfortunately, housing prices are going up and housing is becoming out of reach for too many families; especially low and middle income families,” Nikhil Gupta, executive director of the Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County said.
According to Gupta, a recent rental study conducted by the Montgomery County Planning Department found the county has a shortage of 20,000 affordable housing units.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do and I believe it starts with the people right here in this room,” Gupta said.
Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-Md), was the keynote speaker.
“We need you,” Cummings said. “We need you to make sure that you scream from the mountain top and across the country about how important affordable housing is.”
Here at @HousingMoCo #AffordableHousingSummit2017 @mymcmedia pic.twitter.com/EAnfs2NfMg
— Mitti Hicks (@MittiMegan) May 5, 2017
3 indispensables in life @jamie_raskin “health, housing, & hope” Rob Goldman @MHPartners https://t.co/yr9KDq2LZG pic.twitter.com/9PnrLkOTcb
— reemberto (@reemberto) May 5, 2017
Kind of disingenuous coming from the guy living in Pike and Rose. What’s so daunting about it? Cap the rents. And stop letting developers ONLY produce so-called luxury housing. Make this a no-eviction county. Focus on keeping people IN their homes..and stop the cycle of poverty-for-profit that evictions create. Anything less than that…and you people are just blowing smoke. I covered this stupid event 20 years ago..and you’ve gotten NO WHERE in all that time. Waste of time and energy.
Your running good hard working families out of this county with your low income housing act. People are scared to send there kids to the schools they went to when they were little.