A good bill thwarted by a very bad law

As relayed by the Boston Globe, a recent report points out a barrier to affordable housing that had not occurred to me before. The expert they interviewed explains it well:

''The fear is that if they build affordable housing and children live in that housing, the cost of schooling those kids in those homes would outweigh the amount of money in property tax brought in from those homes," said Barry Bluestone, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University and a coauthor of the study. ''There would be more costs over and above what is generated in revenue. Which means they would have to raise money in some other ways, or spend less per child. No municipality wants to do that."

The inadequate supply of affordable housing is a notorious glitch in the housing market, and governments typically have to provide incentives to developers to build it -- something Boston is particularly good at, despite the barrier presented by the cost of education.

Bottom line: One more reason local funding of schools is a bad, bad idea.