Hal Lippman, former Falls Church vice mayor and current president of the Citizens for a Better City, F.C.’s venerable and original civic association, spoke before the F.C. City Council last week and announced that the CBC Board of Directors, as a whole, has endorsed his take on the shortcomings of the recent years’ push for affordable housing in the Little City.
Namely, the concern is over the lack of sufficiently low income criteria for persons applying for affordable housing in Falls Church. It is a stark but important critique.
Lippman, speaking on behalf of the CBC board, said, “In my statement last month I expressed concerns based on the 2021 joint League of Women Voters/CBC series of forums on affordable housing in Falls Church. As I noted then the two basic themes of those three forums were the issues of economic and racial diversity, which over the years the City’s efforts had been unsuccessful in realizing.
“After further due diligence since then (attending work sessions, the walk around, and other public events, and carefully reviewing the RFP and other relevant source documents), my initial concerns still appear to be warranted.
“Let me explain why by sharing some significant data points that underlie these concerns,” he stated. “Over the past 20 years, excluding 132 long-existing affordable housing units at the Fields and Virginia Village, the City has brought 204 units into its inventory, of which 189 (88%) have been at between 60% and 80% AMI (Area Median Income). By way of comparison, in 2021 when the League and CBC held the joint forums the AMI was slightly under $130,000, which at the 60% level for a family of four was almost $80,000. Now the AMI for a four-person household is $163,900, which at the 60% level is $98,340 for four persons, 78,672 for two, and $68,838 for one.
“What does this all mean in terms of the City’s failure to address economic and racial diversity?” he asked. “Just 3% of rental properties in our City are at 40% AMI (currently, $65,560 for four persons and $52,448 for two) and about one-third of current waiting list applicants are at an AMI of 30% or below ($49,170 for four persons and $39,336 for two). In this regard, incomes of lower wage earners are particularly important, including for example: hotel workers ($33,000-$46,000); retail workers ($34,000-40,000); house cleaners ($34,000-40,000); and janitors ($35,000).
“Hourly employees, such as kitchen staff, fast food workers, baristas, and servers/waitstaff are all in the $13-$17.00 range (which, if full time and excluding tips, amounts to about $30,000). Clearly, based on the dominant 60% – 80% AMI pattern over the past 20 years these and other such lower income wage earners have not been the focus of City affordable housing efforts.
“Furthermore, over the past 20 years the percentage of African American residents has remained in the 4-5% range (currently 4%). In effect, among other things, the City failed to confront the legacy of the long ago actions taken by the then Falls Church Town Council to ‘retrocede’ roughly one-third of its territory back to Fairfax County….to reduce the influence of
Black voters in local elections.
“To sum up,” he stated, “I believe the City has never focused adequately on the essential issue of bringing about a more racially and economically diverse community. Our wonderful Little City remains among the least racially diverse communities in the region and an economically restrictive community for lower income people of color and others in similar wage-earning circumstances.
“Accordingly, I’d like to recommend some changes in the RFP being considered tonight: on pp. 15-16, item 2-A, change ‘30-80% AMI’ to ‘30-60% AMI’; 2-B, change ‘50%’ to ‘30%’; 2-C, change ‘most of the 80% AMI units’ to ‘many of the 60% AMI units’ and on p.16 item 1,
change ‘50% AMI’ to ‘30% AMI.’ If the Council is unable to consider these AMI level
recommendations tonight, I respectfully request that they be addressed in the near future.”
