We need to start first with a plan to keep what we build. So much of the focus is on building new—and that’s understandable, given how big the housing gap is. Still we’re looking past a critical lesson about affordability: it is extraordinarily difficult to maintain these builds 10-15 years in when home systems, appliances, and interiors begin to fail.
Funding for affordable housing tends to skip right over the question of how to keep it. Private investment, when it agrees to come to the table is temporary—typically 10-15 years before it demands market-rate returns, especially in a community as attractive as Davidson. Constrained public resources, in contrast, prioritize efficiency, rewarding volume over offering residents design and functionality the rest of us expect, including small dignities like private entrances, in-home washers and dryers, and the porches and stoops that connect us as neighbors.
Town-owned land is our citizens’ asset. We should use it to create affordable housing that we would choose as home for ourselves, our parents, or our children. We know affordable housing can be safe and attractive, but the job for Town resources doesn’t end there. We must commit to reinvesting public resources in it for the long haul. If it were sustainable through canny management of the meager cash flow generated by discounted rents or with homeowners’ incomes that barely keep pace with the cost of living, the market would have already closed the affordable housing gap.
(This post is excerpted from my responses to a series of candidate questions posed by Davidson’s online local news resource: News of Davidson. The full article appeared on that site on Friday, August 29, 2025 and can be reached here.)
