The Knoxville City Council approved a resolution, eight to one, on first reading last week, that would allocate a portion of new potential sales tax revenue to affordable housing.
On Tuesday, Knoxville voters will decide whether to approve a 0.5 percentage-point increase in the sales tax, from 2.25 percent to 2.75 percent.
The resolution that advanced to second reading would allocate the smaller amount — between $10 million or 22 percent of the potential tax increase — to affordable housing.
Knoxville anticipates that a potential sales tax increase will boost revenue by $47 million annually.
According to current city law, the mayor’s budget proposals must allocate at least $5 million to affordable housing.
Since 2021, Knoxville has spent almost $35 million on affordable housing. The resolution says the city has created 1,926 affordable housing units and developed 264 permanent supportive housing units.
“With this success, the City nonetheless recognizes that ongoing and anticipated changes in federal financial and technical support for affordable housing development will continue to
shift the burden of growing and preserving affordable housing development to state and local Authorities,” the resolution says.
At the city council meeting, two people associated with Justice Knox, a left-wing religious nonprofit, spoke in favor of using Knoxville tax money to fund affordable housing.
Sue Stevens, who is a local resident, stated, “homelessness is a housing problem” at its roots. She added that affordable housing allows people to “thrive and live well,” which in turn makes Knoxville’s community “also thrive.”
Rick Carter, an associate priest at the Church of the Good Shepard in Fountain Hills, thanked the council for approving the resolution, stating that it moves the city closer to a “just, compassionate, and thriving community for all.”
Throughout his time talking, Carter provided examples of people who had benefited from the program.
According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, the last time Knoxville residents approved a sales tax increase referendum occurred in 1988.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected].
If putting government money into the economy causes inflation, and we know it does, why would anyone think that putting government money into housing wouldn’t inflate housing costs?
They are misnomering “subsidized” housing and calling it “affordable”
Most people don`t accept that the decisions they made in the past led to where they are today, many never understand that fact. Whether they are just lazy people, or something bad happened along in their life, they can always climb out of the hole they find themselves in. But they don`t. They wait and whine for someone else to come along a give them what they want.
Government owned, or subsidized public housing, is not an answer. Knoxville City is a Liberal run city, populated by Liberals, who want the rest of the taxpayers to pay for their “dreams”.
Government, at any level, should not be in the home building business, much less any other business. Period.