System the problem
To the editor:
I am supportive of affordable housing and Housing Resources Bainbridge. It is one of the reasons I purchased my home at Wallace Cottages. However, the promise of affordable housing has not come to fruition.
Recently there was a building moratorium, and during that time Central Highlands Homebuilders built Wallace Cottages as affordable housing. However, a year ago construction of full-priced homes came to an end, and the builder moved on to the Madison Place development.
While construction there moved rapidly, months went by before site preparation began at the affordable housing site. Those units still are not complete.
I’m not blaming developers. They work the system within the established parameters. I am pointing out a systemic flaw. Those who are well-to-do have their nice houses. Then the developer moves to a different neighborhood and builds more nice houses. The people who need affordable housing are marginalized.
That same thing will happen at Wintergreen unless we ask our leaders:
• What measures will you include to prevent repeating that pattern?
• Should affordable housing units be completed prior to issuing certificates of occupancy for full-price units?
• Will you reduce the stigma by making low-income units architecturally indistinguishable from full-price units?
• How will you prevent full-price units from becoming the domain of special purpose acquisition companies?
• How will you address the problem of investors buying empty units?
Developers will assert that these steps are not economically viable but they are already happening in Seattle and elsewhere. Putting affordable units last in construction perpetuates marginalization. We must ask about affordable housing projects — will this provide help to those in need or simply line the pockets of developers?
Mark Harrington
Bainbridge Island
Love development
To the editor:
The affordable housing project of Bethany Lutheran Church is such an example of unselfish giving. If there is someone who exemplifies unselfishness, it is Pastor Paul Stumme-Diers. The generosity and community-mindedness of this church and congregation should be an example to us all of how to be a blessing to a community.
On Channel 9 (recently) was a broadcast of the Library of Congress Gershwin Award for Popular Song Writing. It was given to Lionel Ritchie. In his acceptance remarks, he said that in his travels around the world giving concerts what he has learned is that we are all one family, not a tribe, we are all one people.
The one thing that everyone wants and needs and that answers our needs is love. Well, that to me is what Bethany Lutheran’s project exemplifies: LOVE. There is no conflict of interest, greed or self-serving in their project.
Susan R Anderson
Bainbridge Island
Check out HRB
To the editor:
A lot of us are asking what kind of place we want Bainbridge to be in the next 50 years and building institutions to protect and make sustainable the things that make our island unique, from the beautiful land to the amazing community.
Housing Resources Bainbridge is a critical part of that puzzle, helping make the community of people we have here sustainable over the long term. HRB is making sure there is always a space for not just the neighbors I love now, but ensures there will be teachers, artists, cashiers, waiters, emergency workers and families on this island for generations to come even with the limited space and resources available on the island.
If you love your neighbors as much as I do and want to make what we have sustainable, check out HRB. Let the City Council know we need to keep all the kinds of people who make this island and community so wonderful!
Michael Smit
Bainbridge Island
Cancel debt
To the editor:
Can’t the Review find someone who actually knows something about history to write about it? In a recent issue, columnist Rich Manieri wrote, “President Biden, however, is working his way toward turning the basic principles of borrowing, understood by everyone from the ancient Mesopotamians to South Philly legbreakers, upside down. He wants to cancel student loans on a mass scale.”
Manieri apparently doesn’t know that legendary Mesopotamian Hammurabi began his 42-year reign as king of Babylon in 1762 BC by officially canceling all citizens’ debts owed to his government. Hammurabi proclaimed other debt jubilees in 1771, 1780 and 1792 BC. Historians have identified at least 30 general debt cancellations in Mesopotamia from 2400 BC to 1400 BC. Canceling debts on a mass scale was a defining characteristic of Mesopotamia. Their habit of periodically canceling all their citizens’ debts was in keeping with Hammurabi’s Code, which proclaims that “the powerful may not oppress the weak; the law must protect widows and orphans … in order to bring justice to the oppressed.”
The oppressive growth of student debt over the last few decades is an outrage. By canceling some of it, Biden would simply turn “the basic principles of borrowing, understood …by the ancient Mesopotamians” and every traditional society ever since then right-side up again.
Mark Hoffman
Bainbridge Island
Really? Pro-life?
To the editor:
Another mass killing and more platitudes. I’m ashamed to say, this time, I’m the one who is numb.
This evening while watching the PBS News Hour, the faces and names of the victims were cited. Alithia Ramirez’s best friend was killed in a car accident last year. She sent his parents a drawing of him sketching her portrait in heaven and her sketching his portrait on earth. A young girl, Maite Rodriguez, had dreams of becoming a marine biologist. Alexandria Aniyah Rubio had dreams of becoming a lawyer.
Last week a politician said that he was pro-life because every lost embryo could have been the child who grows up to cure cancer, finds a solution for ALS, etc.
I have to wonder why the lives lost this week, and every other time, doesn’t give that politician pause. Could Alithia have been the next Rembrandt? Could Maite have determined how to save the Great Barrier Reef? Could Alexandria have become the next Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
Why are the cells in my uterus so precious and once they’re expelled worthless?
Lily Diament-Hansen
Bainbridge Island
