Growls

Another chapter in the use of your tax dollars! And this isn't an April Fool's joke either. Last Wednesday’s edition of the DC Examiner reported that “Arlington County’s government access cable channel, AVN74, has released the first episode in a series of TV documentaries that explore issues such as transportation, emergency services, and affordable housing. The first episode, titled “Affordable Housing?” addresses the need for and lack of affordable housing in the county from the view of low-to moderate-income residents, senior citizens, developers and county government officials.”

Channel AVN74 is part of the $1.2 million Communications Division of the Department of Libraries (reference page 9, section H, Manager’s Proposed FY 2007 budget).

For the record, Arlington taxpayers do more than their “fair share” to subsidize so-called affordable housing. One needs look at just two documents. Look first at the Summary of Resources, page ix of the FY 2005 Comprehensive Annual Performance Report [CAPER] (Adobe required), which is submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD). It shows that Arlington County officials used $93 million in federal, state, local, and private money in providing so-called affordable housing. Then, according to data in the Washington Council of Government’s 2003 Housing Data Survey (Adobe required), one learns that Arlington County’s “effort per 1,000 population ranks third among local governments in subsidizing housing, as measured by the number of rental and public housing units per 1,000 residents:

Alexandria – 29.01
Arlington – 28.33
Washington, DC – 36.73
Fairfax County – 12.12
Falls Church – 12.86
Loudoun County – 16.99
Montgomery County – 22.53
Prince George’s County – 6.60
Prince William County – 7.30

With numbers like that, it’s no wonder that Arlington’s grand poobahs have to get its propaganda machine running.