I received an open letter from Bernard Carman today. Carman has operated a boarding house in the historic Montford district for about 22 years. The city recently issued him a Notice of Violation, asserting city codes forbid him from having more than five tenants. Carman said he bought his eight-bedroom boarding house with the understanding that all bedrooms could be rented. If he complies with the city’s wishes and evicts three tenants, he will not be able to make his mortgage payments. Carman said none of the neighbors have ever complained to him about there being too many tenants.

When I moved back to Asheville proper about ten years ago, I was chagrined when my landlady told me I was renting illegally. (I no longer live there, incidentally.) She explained many people in the old subdivisions had to illegally rent in order to pay taxes and mortgages.

The politically correct thing to do would be to:

  1. Enforce the UDO and kick low-rent tenants out on the streets.
  2. Let people who can’t rent rooms or sell their houses go into foreclosure.
  3. Let them join the evictees on the streets.
  4. Designate the neighborhoods Recovery Zones.
  5. Give the houses to real homeless people who don’t want to live in conventional housing.
  6. Raise income taxes on the former homeowners and tenants to pay for the housing subsidies.
  7. Raise property taxes on everybody else to cover losses in property tax revenues incurred by converting private housing to HUD housing.
  8. celebrate and embrace the synergy thus created.