Affordable Swarthmore:
Housing, Zoning, and Community
Photo: Andy Shelter
About Affordable Swarthmore: What This Blog Is and Is Not
Last summer, startled by the alarming rise of housing prices in Swarthmore, a group of neighbors started meeting to talk about the problem. Of course, it isn’t just our problem. Housing affordability (or lack of affordability) is a nationwide crisis. But once you start to think about that, you can get dizzy and want to go back to bed.
One advantage of living in a small town is that it seems possible to solve local problems—or at least to have a fighting chance of solving them. So we decided not to hide our heads under our pillows but instead to go out into the community and see what we could do.
In October, we circulated a petition. It read in part:
As residents of Swarthmore, we are concerned about the future of development and the issue of affordability. We believe now is the time to take stock of our town’s values and ensure that our planning, zoning, and land-use ordinances align with those values….We ask Borough Council to take steps to maintain a diversity of housing and retail space in Swarthmore, and to seek ways to keep the borough affordable and welcoming to a wide range of people.
Within a couple of weeks, over 300 people had signed. We presented the petition to our borough council, and in December they authorized a task force with the mission of recommending strategies to “preserve and expand reasonably priced housing in Swarthmore.”
I don’t know how to do that, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot for the last eight months. I’ve read books and articles, had coffee with many neighbors, gone to webinars, and called up strangers on the phone. Lots of ideas are swirling in my head. I’m a writer by profession, and my instinct when it comes to swirling thoughts is to try to make sense of them by organizing them into sentences and paragraphs, then sharing them with others.
The affordability task force started meeting in March. I am its chair, but this blog is not its mouthpiece. Rather, it is a record of my explorations, wonderings, and ponderings.
This is a chronicle of one woman’s effort to learn more about housing affordability and to contemplate what we might change to make our community more affordable and welcoming.
Scroll down to start reading!
-April 1, 2022
The White House Promotes Housing Affordability: An All-of-the-Above Approach (courtesy of Desegregate Connecticut)
Today I got an email from one of my favorite housing affordability organizations, Desegregate Connecticut, telling me about the Biden administration’s new proposals “to ease the burden of housing costs.”
Today I got an email from one of my favorite housing affordability organizations, Desegregate Connecticut, telling me about the Biden administration’s new proposals “to ease the burden of housing costs.” The email explains the proposals well, so I thought I’d let DesegregateCT do the heavy lifting for the Affordable Swarthmore blog this week.
As a bonus, I get to introduce you to a wonderful organization. Sign up for their mailing list! Watch the recordings of their excellent webinars! Read their Playbook for Advocates!
Here in Pennsylvania, we have just a small hodgepodge of municipalities working toward more affordability in housing. It’s exciting to think about what a statewide organization might do.
