Anyone who lives in Madison knows that finding a good place to live that you can afford is a bit of a struggle, even for those of us who enjoy a relatively comfortable life. If you’re only making $10 per hour or $20,800/year, and if you have kids, it becomes much more of a challenge. Even when you can afford your housing, other problems like inattentive landlords often become a problem. This week, there are two meetings to get community input on what the biggest issues folks are having are and what some solutions might be.
REVIVING THE STUDENT TENANT UNION
The first meeting is tonight at the UW Campus at 7:00 tonight, check TITU for the room. This first meeting is a meeting to find out if there is interest in reviving the Student Tenant Union. The Students for the Tenant Resource Center were denied $55,000 in funding for the 2007-2008 school year because the SSFC determined that their connection to the Tenant Resource Center, which recieved the funding, did not meet the SSFC funding criteria. They made this decision despite the fact that this is the funding structure that the SSFC has funded for the past 11 years. So, the meeting tonight on campus will explore if students are interested in continuing to have resources to help with their tenant issues, what resources they want and what the top issues they face are.
MADISON AND DANE COUNTY COMMUNITY MEETING
The second meeting is Saturday at 10:00 at Immanuel Lutheran Church 1021 Spaight St. This meeting is sponsored by the Affordable Housing Action Alliance and the Progressive Dane Housing Committee. We’ll be getting together to talk about what the biggest housing issues are and what can we do to solve those problems at the County and City levels. These issues may be tenant/landord issues, fair housing/discrimination issues, development issues or affordable housing issues.
The public is welcome to attend both of these meetings and give these organizations your input about what the biggest issues are and what our priorities should be. If you can’t make the meetings but want to give your input, I can pass along the info if you email me at brendakonkel@yahoo.com.
