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Ann Arbor CEO Wants Affordable Housing For All

Courtesy photo
/
McKinley
Albert Berriz is the CEO of McKinley real estate that owns 60 percent of the workforce housing in Washtenaw County.

Ann Arbor is now the 8th economically segregated city in the country, and there is growing concern about lack of affordable housing for the middle class in all of Washtenaw county. The reality is more and more people have fewer and fewer choices to live in affordable housing in Washtenaw county.

 
Albert Berriz is the CEO of McKinley real estate that owns 60 percent of the workforce housing in Washtenaw County.

He calls those workers unable to afford to live in the community that they are employed as the "missing middle." He says this is a problem that affects people just trying to earn a living and live nearby. In Washtenaw county that includes teachers, medical workers, and firemen who work in Ann Arbor but cannot afford to live there.

Berriz says you achieve "economic segregation" when people who work in your city cannot afford to live in your city.  He says they have plans to build more affordable housing in Washtenaw County, but is not convinced city officials will embrace his ideas that would ultimately allow people to live next to where they work.
 
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— Lisa Barry is a reporter, and host of All Things Considered on 89.1 WEMU. Contact her at 734.487.3363, on twitter @LisaWEMU, or email her lbarryma@emich.edu

Lisa Barry was a reporter, and host of All Things Considered on 89.1 WEMU.
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