Re: “Seattle is in determined want of a blueprint for protected, reasonably priced housing” [July 14, Opinion]:
I appreciated Alex Fryer’s column on landlord/tenant chaos.
The owner/tenant relationship will all the time, all the time be problematic. The purpose made by Edmund Witter, senior managing legal professional on the Housing Justice Undertaking, about renters on the margins simply “giving up” on paying hire in a spiral of debt is telling. Apparently, within the present setting, tenants have been given some benefits within the perpetual landlord/tenant energy battle. It’s an unpleasant dynamic irrespective of who has the higher hand.
What we want is means much less rented residences and far more condominiums that folks should purchase. Individuals should be their very own landlord. That results in means much less “giving up” and far more monetary stability and alternative to construct private wealth.
I do not know why apartment growth and homeownership is just not extra inspired. Landlords are sucking the wealth out of the poor and out of all our younger individuals. What would wish to vary to get extra reasonably priced apartment growth?
Isabel D’Ambrosia, Seattle
