Community support needed for affordable housing, advocate says

Community support needed for affordable housing, advocate says
By KATHY KAHN

Architect Michael Shilale has a new visitor gracing the front of his New City firm. She’s called “The Seated Lady,” a creation of sculptor Edward Walsh.

While Walsh’s “Lady” may well end up gracing the garden of a wealthy arts patron, her human counterparts are desperately seeking decent housing throughout the Hudson Valley. For Shilale, an affordable housing advocate, the challenge to introduce reasonably priced housing in Rockland County and elsewhere has often proved to be an exercise in frustration.

“We live in an area where the only type of housing people seem interested in is ‘vasectomy housing’ a new term coined to describe the ever-increasing number of over-55 communities,” said the architect.

Shilale served as president of the Rockland Action Housing Commission and the American Institute of Architects for the Lower Hudson Valley in 2006. He stepped down from those roles, but still serves on both boards; right now, he’s focusing on coordinating the lobbying group preparing to travel to Albany this spring to visit the new governor. Their topic?

“Affordable housing what else?” said Shilale. “Unfortunately, the only kind of development anyone seems interested in are the ones where there are no families or children in the community the adult community.”

From Shilale’s point of view, this type of housing is not bringing people together; rather, it is creating islands of isolation, where families, seniors and young couples are segregated, separated and ultimately lose out when it comes to true community living.

“Ask anyone over the age of 40 how they got to school when they were young,” said Shilale, “and they’ll tell you they walked. Can we say the same today? Absolutely not. In fact, children who live a block from their school are often bused to the front door.

“In the Clarkstown school district, officials are literally canvassing neighborhoods for anyone who can provide housing for their young teachers … there are no apartments for rent, no place for these young people to live to be near the schools they teach in. We are forcing our own children out of our communities,” Shilale said. “Rather than building vasectomy housing, we should be focusing on next-generation housing.”

As an architect and outspoken proponent of sustainable housing, Shilale said his industry is always concerned about how people live, work and play.

“It’s a challenge that’s out of my control and out of my clients’ control as well. Even if we have someone who wants to do affordable housing, it’s up to the local zoning and planning boards to approve the projects. We have some supervisors and mayors on our side, but they don’t make the decisions,” he said.

What’s needed? Shilale says a grassroots effort by the people in the communities is in order.

“Let them go tell their elected officials what’s at stake. How about their own grown children? Where are they going? They need to let their town boards know there needs to be a better way,” he said. “Unfortunately, the only ones who show up are telling their officials, ‘Not in my backyard.”

Shilale says the way to create sustainable housing is to create denser living environments, especially in downtown areas such as Haverstraw, Nanuet and Pearl River in his own Rockland County backyard.

“More density and more subsidies, or a little bit of both … everyone wants single-family subdivisions, but we aren’t building sustainable communities. There also need to be jobs that are created to create a true balance. How can you keep building homes and there are no jobs for anyone? How can a community truly be a community without a job base to support it?”

According to Shilale, some municipalities have been supportive of two-family dwellings, and Rockland’s Action Housing Commission has advocated for health-care workers who live in the county.

“They are the ones that provide care for our loved ones, and there are so many residents that need their daily care. Yet, our health-care workers are the most overworked and underpaid segment of our society,” he said. “Housing is a difficult and expensive proposition for them and little is being done to alleviate this situation.”

EMS workers and firefighters are also in need of housing that doesn’t cost a half-million dollars a unit.

“Think of what it will mean to us if we lose our volunteer fire departments and ambulance workers. Some communities already have paid EMS personnel during the day because no one is available to volunteer anymore … the cost of these services is being passed along to the taxpayers. Imagine paying for fire protection, as we do for police protection. Isn’t the wisest course of action to build affordable housing for this rapidly dwindling group of community workers?” Shilale asked.

More than just affordable housing, Shilale said he and many like-minded architects see the need for towns and villages to start thinking of sustainable communities rather than continuing to rubber-stamp the single-family developments that put a drain on services and, in fact, do not help pay for them.

“It’s a challenge, to say the least, to get affordable housing built. For every project we accomplish, there are two or three that never see the light of day,” he said.

The arrival of “The Seated Lady” seems to have coincided with Shila

e’s plea for a grassroots affordable housing effort to grow not just in Rockland but throughout the Hudson Valley. While Shilale has no doubt his temporary visitor will soon find permanent shelter, he wonders where her human counterparts in Rockland will eventually end up.

“We are losing our young people,” Shilale said. “They need a place to live, too.”

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