To the Editor:

“Affordable” housing is a good idea, isn’t it? Supervisor Hudgins

certainly thinks so. She wanted to raise homeowners’ taxes even

more to provide more of it. Who could object to the idea of homes

for the homeless, goes the thinking. A civic duty almost, much in the

way that the county’s civic “improvement” bonds nearly always seem

to garner a two-thirds vote (it’s your money that’s being borrowed,

folks).

Supervisor Hudgins is now extolling the virtues of “residential studio

units” for “individuals, new college grads, those on fixed incomes,

and those with special needs.” Pretty much everyone. But here’s the

thing: who decides who gets gifted with “affordable” housing? What

is the basis of the selection/rejection process? Might long commuters

with jobs in Fairfax County who have not lucked out here feel a tad

short-changed?

I wonder how much “affordable” housing the county should have,

what the size of the staff to administer such housing would be, why

the county is in the landlord business at all, and what it does with the

rent it collects.

The Soviet Union, older folks will remember, had unlimited

“affordable” housing. What became of the Soviet Union, younger folks

will ask.

Harry Locock

Reston