Category: Housing
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Some Homeless Deserve Compassion, Others Don’t
by James A. Bacon The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on a case that will determine if local governments can criminalize the homeless for sleeping in public, even when shelters are unavailable, reports The Virginian-Pilot. Citing National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) figures, the newspaper notes that there were nearly 6,000…
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The Junk Science Behind a Property-Valuation Study
by James A. Bacon When you examine every issue through a racial lens, everything looks like racism. It’s even easier to find racism everywhere when you resort to junk science (or social science, as the case may be). A case in point is a new study by Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia (Home), which…
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Wait, I’m Confused. Are Rising Housing Valuations Good or Bad for Black Neighborhoods?
by James A. Bacon It’s hard to keep up with the twists and turns of what progressives deem to be racist these days. Once upon a time, gentrification was considered racist because the phenomenon of White people moving into a neighborhood increased local property values, which increased taxes on long-time African-American residents and pressured them…
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Rent Control Bill Introduced in Virginia
by Hans Bader A just-introduced Virginia bill, HB 192, would limit rent increases to “one percent over the Consumer Price Index” in places where the rental vacancy rate is “less than 10 percent,” if the “Consumer Price Index … is greater than five percent.” Virginia has a rental vacancy rate of about 4%, well below…
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Around the Commonwealth: Local Unions and Housing Help
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Some interesting recent actions by local governments: Local employee unions–Many on this blog predicted that local government bodies, especially those in “progressive” urban areas would not be able to resist attempts by local employee unions to enter into collective bargaining. The City of Norfolk has demonstrated that it can and will resist.…
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Charlottesville, Its Public Schools and UVa – Part One – Bad things Happen
by James C. Sherlock In the relationship between Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, very bad things have happened to Charlottesville and continue to do so. I have developed a working thesis on that relationship. The city is at the mercy of the University by virtue of the latter’s wealth, influence, and power in Charlottesville…
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Things Fall Apart: Virginia Homeownership Rate
From an email from search-intelligence.co.uk attributed to RubyHome Luxury Real Estate: Virginia experienced the largest decline in homeownership of any state during the new millennium. In 2000, the homeownership rate sat at 73.9%; it declined to 67.4% in 2022. This makes for a percentage-point change of 8.8% since 2000 in 2020 — the most of any state.…
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Short Term Rentals — Long Term Impact
by Jon Balilies The City of Richmond has been discussing altering and revising regulations about short-term rentals (STR’s) and the next action will take place at the Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday afternoon (September 5th). It is an important decision because it is entirely possible the decision by the Commission and ultimately City Council could…
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Broken Doorknobs, Broken Locks
Last year Jwanta Scarbor, a resident of public housing in Norfolk, was found shot to death in her apartment. Now her mother has filed suit against the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority on the grounds that it failed, despite repeated requests, to fix broken doorknobs, locks and windows. “My family is destroyed,” Tawanda Scarbor told…
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Slush Funding Housing
by Jon Baliles There has been a lot of talk about the affordable housing crisis in the region in recent years, but it has been constant in 2023. The entire region needs 39,000 units as fast as it can get them; but interest rates are high, the market is stalling — every week there is…
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How Wokeism Is Ruining Medicine
by James A. Bacon The Woke Revolution’s takeover of K-12 schools, the criminal justice system, higher ed, the media, the military, the C-suite, museums, and other cultural institutions has been highly visible, playing out in blogs and the media for all to see. The conquest of the healthcare system has attracted far less attention, though…
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The Song’s Not New Just Because You Haven’t Heard It Before
by Joe Fitzgerald When I was a younger man and indulged in that lowdown southern whiskey, I would sometimes sum up the next day by saying, “I don’t remember church bells.” Astute observers will immediately recognize literary allusions to Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken,” one of the great rock-and-roll story songs. Now, 41 years sober, I…
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As U.S. Teeters On the Brink of Recession, Virginia Beach Hikes Taxes
by Kerry Dougherty Do you mind if I’m brutally honest for a minute? Good. Because there’s no stopping me today. Any member of the Virginia Beach City Council majority who voted Tuesday to approve an obscene $2.5 billion budget as the country teeters on the edge of a recession is a liar if they try…
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RVA 5×5: Valet Parking
by Jon Baliles There was a lot of talk and coverage this week about the City of Richmond’s Planning Commission unanimously approving the removal of parking minimums citywide with the full City Council expected to take the matter up at its meeting Monday night. The ordinance as written would allow developers to decide how much…