A friend of mine once picked up an ecosphere in a doctor’s waiting room, and thinking it was a snow globe; shook it vigorously — only to see the disaster that external forces can wreak on an isolated and internally balanced system.
It’s equally true that an isolated and balanced system can wreak havoc on anything external to that system – and particularly true of our “quid pro quo” government bureaucracy. Affordable housing programs are not acts of compassion and humanity; they’re acts of regulation and bureaucracy.
The weighty spinning of government is in a balance that is threatened by the willful externality of the public. Affordable housing is not about making a place for people: it’s about putting the people in their place — and keeping them there.