Dan Wilhelm on Roswell Housing
Our Georgia Initiative for Community Housing is a nongovernmental volunteer think tank interested making Roswell a better place to live.
Our mission is: “To promote strategies that support the Roswell economy through workforce and lifelong housing options.”
I think many Roswellians understand that we have a housing problem but they may not realize just how serious it is.
The success of the city’s economy depends upon the ability to attract and retain viable businesses. This requires an available and affordable workforce. Businesses that cannot compete for the resident’s dollar will take their business elsewhere.
Today, 88% of our workforce comes from outside the city. Lower middle-income earners cannot afford to live here. This means that our local businesses have to draft workers from other economies, economies that also have businesses like ours in Roswell. Consequently, workers must be incentivized to be willing to commute into our city every day, rather than working where they live.
Once we hire employees, we need to retain them. As they grow weary of the commutes, they leave us. Our business owners have to rehire and retrain their staff constantly. This is expensive because hourly wages in Roswell have to be higher. Consequently the cost of goods and services sold must absorb this cost. In other words, things we buy in Roswell will tend to be more expensive than in other communities.
We are also having a difficult time retaining our seniors. Many of them are forced into senior living homes or to move out of the city altogether. When our seniors are unable to afford to live here, both the culture and the economy are endangered. Many of our empty-nester seniors do not need a 5,000 square foot house. They need something smaller and more affordable when their income becomes fixed.
We need a multicultural community with a broad span of the economic scale. We need a balance of demographics. Millennials demand this, and if we do not provide it, they will go elsewhere. Our children will not want to live here, or will not be able to afford to. We need to ask ourselves if this is healthy. What will be the fate of this city in 20 years if younger people choose not to live here?
The solution is simple but not easily achieved. Land is expensive to develop or redevelop. We do not need “housing projects” in Roswell. We do not want to have an area where poor people are sequestered away, where the children have little chance to rise above their disadvantaged fate. We need mixed use development that includes an affordable housing element. This can be done with imaginative tax credits and government grants. But the citizenry of the city must accept this necessity or it will never materialize.
So what can you do? You can let your city council and mayor know that you support these ideas. You can take an active role in helping our economy thrive and do so for the long term. You can also come join our team if you want to get active on these issues.
Dan Wilhelm, past chair, Roswell Georgia Initiative for Community Housing