Affordable Housing

( DEED versus DEED of TRUST restrictions)

I support affordable Housing. The government can help by making land available to this end. However, they should not treat the new home buyers of affordable housing (teachers, fireman, municipal workers, retail workers, CW workers, young families) as second class citizens by including Deed restrictions. This is the hand of government in private property, an affront to our founding principals and to the constitution.

Solution: We should return to the original way the City offered help with home ownership. This approach gave the new homeowner full rights to their property once they had repaid any special loans granted. Restrictions were not placed in the Deed but in the Deed of Trust, so that once the loan was repaid, the owner owned their home just like any other homeowner. With DEED restrictions, the government's interest in private property rights is continually renewed every twenty years.

Crispus Attucks, built in 1975 using Deed of Trust restrictions (not Deed restrictions), continues to have one of the highest owner occupied rates in the city. This is the fair and honorable way to help persons become homeowners.

Terence Wehle

Candidate for City Council