The Affordable Housing Industrial Complex at Work
19th August 2026
Most subsidized housing projects are rentals, but a developer called Alberta Alive Condiminiums, the townhouses squeeze three bedrooms and two-and-one-half baths into 1,400 square feet. To keep the footprint small in land-poor Portland, each townhouse occupies three floors.
CDP plans to sell each townhouse for $299,000. But it is spending more than $6 million building eight such townhouses, or $754,000 apiece. Thus, taxpayers are providing a $455,000 subsidy to each buyer. Buyers will be restricted from reselling the properties for more than they paid for them plus inflation, thus denying them one of the benefits of homeownership that most others enjoy. The land the condos are on will be owned by a “community land trust” that will charge the homeowners HOA fees for land management.
Socialism by any other name is just as unpleasant.