A recent article in the Northwest Herald (“Workforce housing apartments debut”) celebrated the opening of a “50-unit workforce housing” project in McHenry called Taylor Place.

The project cost $25 million, according to the article, and was the recipient of millions of dollars in taxpayer money for construction, including help from U.S. Rep. Bill Foster and McHenry County.

That’s $500,000 per apartment! The average house price in McHenry isn’t this high, and condo sales (a good proxy for the market price for apartments) average about $223,000, or less than half the cost of this “low income” housing.

Rents in McHenry average about $1,350 per month but tenants will only pay $1,000, resulting in a savings to them of $350 per month. But, based on the costs of the project, total rents will have to average over $3,300 per month!

So instead of a subsidy of $350 per month, which would permit low income households to rent market rate apartments, the subsidy, paid for by Illinois taxpayers, will be over $2,300 per month. The low income tenants will save a fraction of the millions the investors will make as a result of subsidies and tax credits.

If local, state and federal officials continue to build more “low cost” housing like Taylor Place, the taxpayers will go broke!

Steve Willson

Huntley