What was he thinking?
By Lori Jaffe
In 2021, County Executive Marc Elrich ran for re-election touting his work to protect affordable housing in MoCo. And three years later, at his October 10th Media Briefing, (23:50) he is still talking about the problem. Fighting for his political life after decades of failed policies, Elrich has come out against the Attainable Housing Strategies Initiative. Although presented as an attempt to “be part of the solution to the county’s housing woes,” this initiative is essentially an attempt by the Planning Board and Council to put MoCo into compliance with the United Nation’s 15-Minute City concept. But Elrich’s 2019 “Promoting Community Trust” sanctuary policy made the county’s affordable housing crisis even worse. Early Voting starts next week. Be sure to send a message to Mr. Elrich – Vote For Question A to hold him to two terms.
Marc Elrich pointed out that he worked on affordable housing for many years. “I have been involved in work to protect affordable housing and tenant’s rights for more than 40 years. I’m the ONLY candidate being honest about the scope of the problem and offering solutions to address it. This isn’t just a housing issue — the failure to protect affordable housing will lead to the loss of our workforce with serious consequences for the economy. And what we’re currently doing is NOT working.”
In 2019, Elrich signed an Executive Order that made Montgomery County a sanctuary county for undocumented immigrants. With that order came the promise of County benefits, regardless of citizenship.
Naturally, this attracts many low-income immigrants and their families to our area. And who can blame them? In 2022, Georgetown University’s Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues wrote: “Montgomery County, Maryland has continued to be a primary destination for migrant and asylum-seeking children, youth, and families. Between 2014 and 2021, Montgomery was the eleventh highest receiving county in the nation for unaccompanied migrant children seeking to reunify with family members or other sponsors. More than 1,000 unaccompanied minors arrived in our county between January and August 2021, and we’ve welcomed at least 500 minors since the beginning of fiscal year 2022. In addition, an unknown number of children continue to arrive with parents or other caregivers. While there is no mechanism to track the overall number of migrants and asylum-seekers arriving in each state or county, we can feel the impact on our public schools and community-based services.”
Low income immigrants cannot be blamed for wanting to improve their lives. But can they afford to live in Montgomery County? According to Montgomery Perspective, our county has experienced taxpayer flight for many years. “More taxpayers have been leaving Montgomery County than entering it for a long time. The taxpayers who are coming in make less money than the ones who are leaving.” According to the Migration Policy Institute, roughly 56% of non-citizens earn less than $50,000 annually.
In 2020, the MoCo government posted the “Faces of Poverty,” which said that 46.8% of all renters were housing burdened.
Yes, MoCo continues to have an affordable housing problem. Marc Elrich’s sanctuary policy made the problem worse. Vote For Question A to hold him to two terms. We simply can’t afford more of the same.
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Lori Jaffe is the Party Secretary for the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee, volunteer coordinator and Member of the Executive Board. She can be reached at [email protected]
