Readers Write: Affordable housing, abortion and Down syndrome, adoption and DNA testing

Commentary writer Peter Coyle ("Affordable housing unchained," April 8) claims that the best way to make new homes affordable in Minnesota is to reduce the regulatory costs of homebuilding, stating that a comparable home costs $20,000 less to build in Wisconsin. His arithmetic is way off — affordable homeownership is well beyond the reach of many Minnesotans, and Coyle's approach is unlikely to benefit lower-income people and households of color. It takes a comprehensive approach and an increased public financial commitment to increase homeownership, make rent affordable for more people and reduce homelessness. Counseling and support for prospective home buyers, mortgage strategies and public investment to build more affordable homes and apartments are all needed. Just cutting regulations, many of which protect buyers and communities, will do nothing but put more money in builders' pockets.

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Coyle's article made the good point that solutions to our affordable-housing challenge go beyond simply more subsidies. His proposals — such as changing zoning regulations that prohibit smaller homes — were focused on new construction. But those strategies are also applicable to housing for homeless and lower-income citizens. For example, dormitories or communal apartment arrangements could be lower-cost options if government policy allowed for and promoted them. Current options for homeless people seem to veer between a bench, a church basement or a full apartment — with little in-between. Basic publicly funded dorm rooms could be a low-cost transitional option. Similarly, entry-level rental units seem to overwhelmingly consist of full apartments. These units are often too expensive for people earning $12 per hour. But maybe these folks could afford a lower-cost communal living arrangement. My 65-year-old uncle lives in a very pleasant, unsubsidized, communal-style apartment in high-cost San Francisco.

So why don't we do this? As Coyle described, two reasons are zoning restrictions and local NIMBY opposition. Overcoming both will not be easy, but it would be a more efficient and sustainable strategy to make sure all Minnesotans have an affordable place to live.

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Though affordable housing is chained by both the local and state government and their ways of regulation, Coyle fails to consider the more significant issue and crisis: the federal government and its regulations. Ever since the crash of 2008, the Federal Reserve has been rather coerced to keep its interest rate very low, practically at zero, during the more beginning period of the aftermath of the crash. This coercion appears to be more the means to have ever kept the housing prices high rather than have them truly correct, which should have been the better resolution. But heaven forbid we would ever let the prices fall to such a plateau that speaks the dark truth no one ever wants to talk about but cynically denies.

I felt the need to respond to Tim J. McGuire's April 8 commentary regarding his personal situation ("Aborting fetuses with Down's should be legal; it's still wrong"). His story of his own disability and of his son's Down syndrome was so beautifully written. I agree we are all special, unique and cannot be replicated. McGuire's story brought a light to my day.

McGuire doesn't believe in abortion. He believes "we must build a basic respect for all lives."

He says his "life has been worth living," that his son Jason has been a real gift to the world and that Jason's life is worth living.

He says that "everybody is different in some way and everybody has a contribution to make to the world." This is good to hear.

And yet he assumes that any government legislation will "force" people to keep Down syndrome babies.

He finds it "reprehensible and morally dangerous for government to pretend to know best what choice parents should make."

If it hasn't already, all that fence-sitting's gonna start hurting somewhere …

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I read each of the April 8 opinions on abortion and Down syndrome by McGuire, George F. Will and Ruth Marcus. They were all interesting, but moot except for the one by Marcus, who stated fact, not opinion: In this country, a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion. Period.

This fight has been fought before. Abortion was not a crime until the mid-1800s. By the century's end, it was banned in every state. By 1930, there were an estimated 800,000 illegal abortions taking place, resulting in thousands of women's deaths each year. Connecticut even made it illegal for married couples to obtain birth-control devices.

The forces who believe they have the right to impose their judgment on every woman of childbearing age in the U.S. have been and still are unceasingly working to do just that.

I have been watching hearings regarding MNLARS on public TV. Code required for MNLARS is complex — much more complex than the challenge I faced. If Minnesota IT has to hire more people or if the project is farmed out to the private sector, I wish the government lots of luck (" 'Guardrails' proposed for state IT agency," April 12). Anyone who takes a job working on MNLARS is flat-ass crazy given the politicization that surrounds it.

The interesting and well-written story "From strangers to family" (April 8) tells strangers to adoption how important lost family connections are. We in the adoption world know that mail-in DNA kits are a gift to adoptees. But what else the story showed is space. A picture included with the article as it continued inside the Variety section showed reuniting lost families giving each other space. So important also.