We’d done a big laundry on Saturday, so we just had sheets and transfer station run for chores.
Made baked haddock for supper. Steamed the beans from the garden and added the tomatoes, cumin and turmeric to the rice and beans for sides.
Not sure why, but we were both slammed, and went to bed early. Outside and heel of foot hurt a lot. Tuesday will be six weeks since the surgery.
I picked vegetables today. One cuke is pretty good. Beans are okay. Tomatoes are horrible.
Looking forward to have two working feet so that I can do some serious garden cleanup instead of only occasional weeding.
The good news is that the incision is improving, and I’m feeling better.
Lots for the compost, including about half a bunch of celery that I found yesterday in the downstairs frig.
Dried and folded two loads of laundry.
We had a short downpour and then a sun shower. It was quite pretty, and I tried (but failed) to get a nice photo.
As opposed to HAC:
I’m writing today to thank you for voting against the proposal to provide solar panels and other materials to the Habitat houses on Orchard Road and Quinaquisset Avenue.
I was not happy with the vote at Town Meeting to allocate additional funds to that project. $100,000 in CPC funds for three families makes no sense to me.
For months, I’ve been asking public officials and Habitat of Cape Cod leaders to explain the rationale for directing affordable housing public funds to private home ownership that benefits so few people.
No one yet has given a logical, objective answer.
“Diversity” is often offered as a reason for affordable housing. I live in a mixed race neighborhood of single family homes, Dixon Drive in Mashpee, so I’m guessing that these advocates are talking about something other than ethnic background when they push “diversity” as a goal: but what? No one’s been able to define this.
I understand the need to provide housing assistance to people filling important but lower-paying jobs; for example, Certified Nursing Assistant. I would much prefer to see a program that provides low- or no-interest loans to workers in these fields, and not outright gifts, as Habitat provides.
Habitat is secretive about the criteria they use, so I’m not sure who is lucky enough to be chosen and who is not. I would like to see contribution to the whole community through civic volunteer work, for example, as another criterion for awarding these gifts. As an aside, I would not consider any activity relating to a particular religion or ethnic group as qualifying.
Habitat has no methodology for tracking the future income of people who have received a gift of a home at 25% of full market value. In other words, a Habitat homeowner could become a millionaire, yet remain in a home that has been subsidized by public funds.
In addition, there’s no time limit on ownership. A Habitat homeowner can remain in their subsidized house for their entire lifetime. Requiring that subsidized private homes be turned over to future low income residents makes marginal sense to me. Allowing someone to live there for decades whether or not they continue to qualify does not.
Finally, as you know, Habitat homeowners pay greatly reduced property taxes, about 1/4 of the tax burden that is expected of the rest of us, including people like my husband and me who are elderly but who don’t meet the stringent and in my view, unrealistic, income and asset requirements of existing tax abatement programs.
These homeowners receive the same services we do – more if they have kids in school – but they pay 1/4 of the property taxes that we pay, for the lifetime of their occupancy in that subsidized home. The fact that they have to sell at the original assessed value is meaningless from a financial standpoint. By my calculations, property values would need to appreciate at least 7% a year to provide an equivalent benefit to a private homeowner. In contrast, according to the real estate website Zillow, Mashpee home values increased by only 5.2% over the past year. Zillow predicts they will rise by only 2.7% next year.
Off Cape, Habitat for Humanity has programs similar to HAC’s, in which funds and volunteers are used to rehab existing housing for low-income and disabled people. I’ve asked the local Habitat leadership about this but they reject this, claiming that this type of resource allocation wouldn’t be helpful to “families”, which they believe are being underserved. This strikes me as particularly ironic: I wonder how they’ve managed to ignore the fact that the public schools, which exist exclusively for the benefit of families, account for half or more of any given town’s municipal budget.
I support affordable housing for the elderly, disabled, veterans and workers in low-paying but critical jobs as a matter of social justice. On the other hand, I don’t support the spending of public funds for vague purposes that don’t provide direct benefit to the Town as a whole.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this message, I’ve asked these and other questions of affordable housing “experts” but have not received answers that make sense to me. I would love an opportunity to discuss these concerns with you and any/all of your colleagues, in the hope that you will see merit in my ideas and that my point of view might even influence future decision making concerning affordable housing.
It rained a little last night and a little this afternoon. I got caught in it briefly, from the truck to the house.
Stopped at Cotuit Liquor to thank Grace the manager for encouraging me to try the non-cask Grand MacNish. Ron is pleased with the price and it works just fine in Rusty Nails!
I brought home three more bottles of white that she recommended.
Drove Alpha to work. Left their house at 2:36, late start partly because she wasn’t ready and partly because I lowered the setting on the lawn mower for James, but we got there on time anyway.
Met a long-time Cape Codder, Jeff, at the work group meeting yesterday. He seems a good fellow, less whiney than the women participants, who have started to annoy me with their hand-waving ineptitude about websites. I had to leave about half an hour into the session to drive James home after Peter’s poor Jeep broke down. I decided to quit the group, family responsibilities being one of the reasons.
Wrote a long memo to one of our Selectpersons who also serves on the Community Preservation Committee for the Town. I’m greatly irritated by the amount of money that’s been allocated to only 3 families via Habitat of Cape Cod. She asked if she could share it, and of course, I’m delighted. Hope it has an effect.
Turns out, I have an infection, likely minor, in the surgical incision. As a result, couldn’t donate blood today, but Ron did, and got his gallon pin!!!
Got a bunch of first aid-type supplies yesterday and started antibiotics today.
Ron’s doc said she’d accept me as a patient. I have a call in to their “new patient” representative and billing department to find out if they accept my insurance.
I think he’s adorable, even with a flashlight between his teeth!
We’ve been struggling for days to understand the instructions that came with our Graber traverse rod.
Ron thinks he finally figured it out, but only after falling off a chair. Fortunately, he landed on my living room “stuffie”, no harm done to man or matter.
In the meantime, I made rice and beans with a side of onions and red pepper, marinated a pork tenderloin, peeled and cut a butternut squash and sauteed greens and garlic. Also did a tiny bit of weeding in one of the vegetable gardens.
Wound looked better this morning.
Ron picked up some great deals on hamburg at Roche.
My doc is dropping my health insurance, so I did a little research on options.
Ron drove Alpha to work and drove Robert home.
We changed the sheets and did the transfer station run.
Ron changed the furnance filter and adjusted settings on the thermostat.