In a letter to Creative Loafing, old friend and veteran Mecklenburg County freedom-fighter Chris Cole drops a bomb on suddenly en vogue affordable housing worries:

Nowhere is Pat Mumford quoted bemoaning minimum housing standards, which make housing more expensive, or zoning rules that shut out mobile homes. In other words, government officials prefer that the poor have no housing at all, rather than to have housing appropriate to their income. Those homeless folks that had their camp burn down last month were merely the subjects of government compassion. After all, they were protected from the flimsy apartments that might have been their plight, if not for the tender mercies of government officials.

Government rules have consequences. Homelessness is one of those consequences. And that won’t change until some of us stop believing that government can abolish economic laws, such as supply and demand.

And here’s another thing, the city council just got back from their retreat where mythical “alternative revenue sources” were a big topic of discussion. What might these be? In one form or another, a new tax on housing.