“The common misconception of residents who live in ‘affordable housing’ is that these developments have nothing but criminals and drug users,” Blue Ridge Housing Authority (BRHA) Executive Director Traver Aiken said.
“I’m not going to sit here and say that it doesn’t happen, but what I am saying is that there will always be individuals that do, (but) when reading the paper regarding the arrest report, our authority is not one with repetitive instances.”
While it is possible that crimes may occur at developments labeled as affordable housing, and criminals past and present may reside in such, there is crime everywhere.
Affordable housing is being used to reference “any ‘household’ that makes at or below the ‘area median income for households’ for any one county that HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) determines through their ‘income limits,’” Aiken explained.
These include households paying 30% to 80% of their income for housing and utility costs.
There are six of these types of affordable housing complexes in Fannin County.
In order to live in these developments, an applicant and all household members must provide birth certificates, social security cards and state issued identification.
A criminal background check is also part of the procedure.
In addition, lifetime registered sex offenders are not eligible to live in HUD housing.
Similar to HUD housing, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) multifamily housing is designed for very low income to moderate income families or individuals, elderly people aged 62 or older and people with disabilities.
Out of the six affordable housing complexes in the county, four are governed by the USDA.
The two agencies also impose many rules to managers overseeing these developments.
Certain violent and drug crimes are not tolerated by the government’s rules.
“The BRHA has a wide range of residents that are elderly, disabled and single mothers of multiple children, single men and women,” Aiken said. “The make up of the households range from the single elderly residents in the one-bedroom apartments to the single young adult that may be in school of some kind to further their education.
“We have generations of family members that live in the same apartment due to hardships with rent and other expenses, so they pool their money together to cover these costs.”
Of the kind of individual that typically seeks HUD housing, Aiken said, “I get a lot of people coming in looking for an apartment because their current residence is being ‘sold’ all of a sudden by the home owner. The home owner is either taking advantage of the market demand for home buyers, but unfortunately, these home buyers are typically second home buyers or people relocating from the bigger cities for multiple reasons.
“What this is doing is causing every local citizen to scramble to find another place to live, but without the supply for this demand, the end result is always going to be that they will be homeless in 30 days if they have no family members that can help or friends.”
He also explained that single mothers escaping domestic issues are also common.