Nancy Bommelman, Minot
Affordable housing.......who is the city of Minot kidding?
There is no affordable housing in Minot. I know people that have had their rent raised $500 in the past year. The only people who are making money on this whole "affordable housing" baloney are the rich boys in town. There are a lot of businesses that are not even paying what they should be paying their employees. Let's say your rent is $1,100 a month, (because some slum lord has to line his pockets). You are taking home $750 every two weeks. That's $1,500 a month, plus you have to pay for your insurance, health, water, sewer, garbage, heat, lights, phone, cable. And you still have to buy groceries.
Good grief, Minot, wake up and do something about rent control in this town. I do not rent, I'm standing up for the people who are on fixed incomes and can't afford to pay this money, because the landlords know that if they can't get the rent paid for, they know somebody else who is making money can afford it. What a shame!! It's no better in Bismarck. My nephew went from $580 per month, an apartment to $1,725 in LESS than a year. Money hungry and greed, how sad. Low income housing is no better. The men, and the term is used very loosely here, that own these apartment buildings and or houses can jack the price up to what ever they want to, because they can. Somebody needs to do something about this before we lose more people in our city. I know three families that have moved to a different town because they can't afford rent here. Just because the oil is here, why jack the price? What about five years ago, why wasn't the price jacked than....the oil shouldn't make any difference. Have some morals instead of greed.
Of course we have to line the big boys in town and let the regular people work their tails off to support their families. It's bad enough the regular people have to restore their homes and live paycheck to paycheck for the next who knows how many years. There are so many senior citizens that can't afford rent they are moving in with their families. They worked hard all those years, this is supposed to be their golden years and retire with no worries, now they are wondering how they are going to pay their rent. How sad! I'm sure the city of Minot won't lose an ounce of sleep over my letter and are laughing all the way to the bank.