Comment Archives: Stories
Re: “N.C. State reaffirms position as Triangle's leading college for general bigotry”
though he obviously completely sucks, i'm pretty sure anyone can run for student body whether you like their opinions or not. also you should probably wait to call the entire university/student population bigoted until they've actually voted him in. he doesn't represent the majority of the student population or the university's policies as a whole. also, the author brought up the comparisions to UNC and Duke, so they're fair game comment on.
Re: “UNC and its Honor Court have failed sexual assault survivors”
Thank you for this article and for saying the following: "The Gambill case has exposed UNC's lack of accountability, which is at the heart of the federal claim against the university. The UNC student complainants, all of whom are sexual-assault survivors, describe insensitive treatment by administrators, and reporting and judicial procedures that contribute to the revictimization of those who speak up."
Re: “The truth about the Goathouse Refuge”
Comments are closed for the evening and will reopen tomorrow morning.
Re: “N.C. State reaffirms position as Triangle's leading college for general bigotry”
Awesome to see The Indy taking yet another awesome journalistic stance regarding another shitty thing that's going on in the triangle. Big time props for calling out this scumbag for what he really is.
Re: “N.C. State reaffirms position as Triangle's leading college for general bigotry”
Dianne, this article has nothing to do with the UNC administration ignoring rape... why are you even bring that into this thread? While your point is valid, it's off topic. Please take your personal crusade elsewhere.
Re: “N.C. State reaffirms position as Triangle's leading college for general bigotry”
" It's unclear whether this explanation will actually distance him from his core constituency, as well as the rest of the NCSU campus."
Oh, good one. Please explain.
Re: “N.C. State reaffirms position as Triangle's leading college for general bigotry”
Good job of undercutting your own arguement in the article. So, a CANDIDATE for student body president can make comments that are repudiated by members of the school- including his own campaign manager-- and that tops the allegations of a school ADMINISTRATION ignoring rape on the UNC campus and seeking retaliation against those who speak out? Maybe this would be more credible if O'Rear were elected, or even came close.
Re: “The truth about the Goathouse Refuge”
@Maria Isabel, Safe Haven was not aware that we were doing a story on the Goathouse Refuge. Our advertisers are not given the details of our editorial coverage.
Re: “The truth about the Goathouse Refuge”
I picked up the printed Indy at a local store and noticed that they had a one page ad for Safe Haven fundraising, coincidence? obviously not. This is not only an example of bad journalism, but it is a mean spirited, too long article that offers no solutions, what was the point for it? does the writer or indy has personal interest in closing this shelter?
Puzzled and confused is how I felt after I read this article.
Re: “The truth about the Goathouse Refuge”
This is the most bizarre concept for an article I have ever seen. Let's take an organization that is doing something to contribute, bringing positive attention to the community, and then round up a twelve former volunteers and act as though it is anyone's business how this refuge is run and just bash them . It isn't the Indy's business or volunteers how many cats they have. The state has no issue and the fact that the reporter seemed to try to instigate an issue with the state is pathetic. The Board has no issues, so why is it anybody's concern? I have adopted from APS in Durham and the Chatham Shelter and both cats have had respitory and eye issues from being in a shelter and it isn't anyone's fault-that is the nature of animals sharing space. This woman isn't trying to harm animals or people. The psuedo-psychological profile NOT based on her should be grounds for action by an attorney if the Goathouse is smart. The Indy could just do a cover story each week on a local organization and bring past volunteers, clients, employees etc and interview them about what problems existed in the past and how they feel the business should be run. Why not start at home with The Independent? Gosh I am sure one or two would speak to the blindness the paper exhibited toward John Edwards or the propensity to support people who help the paper. Let's interview a couple of people who didn't make the cut when the paper changed hands and get some ideas on how The Indy could be better run! This is inane. Every business has a past and the reason people are former volunteers is because they were not a match for the organization. Of course people can look at things with a negative slant because it beats accepting that they just didn't fit. I am personally committing to collecting all the Indy's this week from various locations and donating them to shelters to use in litterboxes. This article will land where it belongs-the bottom of a cat pan.
Re: “The truth about the Goathouse Refuge”
I visited the Goathouse refuge last month and was amazed at how clean the place was for the amount of cats that were on premise. As with any shelter, numerous animals in a small area will lead to more than preferred percentages of disease and sickness. As a business woman I know factually that things fall through cracks and can be taken out of context which is what I believe this article to be. I wonder which shelter would pass this reporter's scrutiny? I highly doubt that any would.
Re: “Some facts about affordable housing”
Durham Independents, living alone isn't a constitutional right, but it is almost required by law. Most cities in the Triangle, including Durham and Raleigh, have an ordinance which forbids more than three unrelated people from sharing a dwelling. I would love to see more projects like Friendship House that hold spaces like living, dining, and kitchen areas in common while giving people privacy and security in smaller chunks. Even if you had an interested developer, though, no bank is going to know how to finance the construction of that, though, and is instead going to be interested in underwriting yet more "luxury condo" units.
And you have yet to address my point that most of the affordable housing you cite is in areas that are still plagued by street crime and therefore cheap because of low demand. Actually look at the locations of the properties in Zillow. It's not a constitutional right to live alone, but it should be a right to live in a place not plagued by endemic crime.
Review this article from last October: http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/durhams-a… There's a 1200 person waiting list to get into federally supported housing, which the Hope VI project of 10 years ago actually reduced the supply of.
Yes, the Triangle is not unique in this, and many cities have affordable housing problems. This does not solve the problem
Re: “Some facts about affordable housing”
As much as I'm in favor of communal everything including housing, I don't think that splitting a 2BR between more than two people is ideal.
You're saying builders are going to keep building expensive housing nobody can afford? Housing is not "affordable" if no one can can afford it.
Everyone loses?
Re: “The truth about the Goathouse Refuge”
I am not a Goathouse insider. I am an adopter. I can speak to the fact that two years ago I adopted a cat that has several chronic health problems as a result of his life at the refuge. Health problems and contagious illness among cats in shelters is a common problem and certainly not unique to the refuge. However, my impression from my experience at the refuge is that the health of these cats is poorly managed. I am glad that this article exposes the issues that the refuge has in caring for the health of the cats. My hope is that the system at the refuge can be improved to better monitor and care for all the animals.
As to the inner politics of the volunteers, the board, and Siglinda, that is something I don't have knowledge about. It does seem as though Siglinda could use a partner to help her in the role of overseeing the operations at the refuge! I hope that the impact of this article is positive.
Re: “Some facts about affordable housing”
Jane -
A few points.
First, living alone is not a constitutional right. Those who make minimum wage and choose to live alone are going to be housing-burdened. This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. Many in Durham do so by choice; that is, they choose to be housing-burdened because they decide it is superior to having a roommate or living with family. In fact communal living is an affordable housing strategy that is often discounted. Hispanic laborers do it all over town, often breaking antiquated and anti-affordable housing laws that restrict maximum occupants when they are not related. Other cultures shun communal of living, housing burden is the result. It's a choice to live alone, and in dramatic numbers people are Going Solo - (see the book by Eric Klinenberg)- but that doesn't mean private decisions to live alone are a policy problem.
Second, rent is not coming down at all, in fact the opposite is happening. Why? Because demand is exceeding supply, and increasingly stringent land-use policies are making it difficult to find equilibrium. This will continue to push housing prices higher, benefiting current land owners at the expense of future land owners. If you do not own a house in Durham but hope to in the future, you suffer from anti-development efforts. It screws you. The harder we make it to build, the less affordable things become (See Carrboro & Chapel Hill, Development Practices).
Finally, your question "It is less a question of does this housing exist than it is are people being paid enough to afford it. And if they're not, shouldn't rent come down accordingly?" concurs with my main point: this is a demand problem. You can build all the affordable housing you want. If people can't qualify, they can't execute, and no problem is solved. So the problem you outline is a jobs and means issue, not a housing issue.
Charles Buki, a revitalization expert consulting on Durham's Southside and Chapel Hill's Northside, is a leading voice on the idea that bad policy results from the misunderstanding of affordable housing as a supply problem.
Builders will continue to build affordable housing (mostly via sprawl, since that's the only viable option in Durham). And today's new homes becomes tomorrow's affordable homes. So long as elasticity is present (Atlanta, Texas, NC), housing prices stay affordable (averaging 2x AMI). So long as it is restricted (SF, LA, NYC, Portland) it becomes unaffordable.
Re: “The truth about the Goathouse Refuge”
I would like to hear comments from any current or past volunteer who had to sign such a paper, requiring one not to speak ill of The Goathouse. Does not exist.
Re: “Unlike Oz, the Legislature is all-powerful”
I definitely see a concerted effort on the GOP to strip away any powers the cities and counties have. The right-wing General Assembly is EXTREMELY power-hungry, and they are relentless. It's a scary time for North Carolina, no doubt. The NC GOP won't be happy until we're just another Mississippi.
Re: “Some facts about affordable housing”
Working full time at minimum wage, the most a single person should be paying in rent is $387 a month. Virtually no one pays that little, even when they are splitting rent costs with another person.
Obviously the Triangle does not have the housing problems that New York and cities in California have; that is why I stated in the text "The Housing Wage for a two-bedroom unit at Fair Market Rent in North Carolina—$14.17—is below the 2013 National Housing Wage of $18.79 (and well below that of densely populated states like California and New York).
But even though the cost of living in the South is comparatively cheap I don't think you can say that rent costs aren't disproportionately high-- esp. in urban areas like the Triangle. It is less a question of does this housing exist than it is are people being paid enough to afford it. And if they're not, shouldn't rent come down accordingly?
Re: “Some facts about affordable housing”
Morning all:
The sources are pretty simple:
The NLIHC report has local FMR at $849. There are plenty of decent 2BR apartments in the triangle for less than $600. Thus "Fair Market Rent" is an inadequate proxy for affordability. It's misleading.
Zillow shows 51 houses currently available in Durham for $50,000. That's roughly 5% of total houses on the MLS market (others are available via private sale). Hardly a shortage. And by most yardsticks, affordable housing would be those costing less than $125,000 (ask Habitat) and there are 316 homes available for LESS than $125,000.
HUD calculates affordable housing by fractional AMI, which in Durham is $68,700. Thresholds are Extremely Low (30%), Very Low (50%) and Low (80%) Income Limits, for Durham that would be $20,610, $34,350, and $54,960.
Then, a household is housing-burdened if they spend more than 30% of their income on housing. For these extremely-low income households that would be $6,183, or $515/month.
Those apartments do exist here. They don't in San Francisco, New York or Chicago (places with actual affordable housing problems).
Guys, you're in the South. It's cheap here. That's why people move here. If you think there's an affordable housing crisis in North Carolina, I recommend you see how far your $515 a month goes in a place will a real housing problem.
Re: “McCrory's budget supports drug courts, closes five state prisons”
Even Governor Gomer bumbles across the right thing every now and again...