“I am just a poor boy

Though my story’s seldom told

I have squandered my resistance

For a pocketful of mumbles

Such are promises

All lies and jest

Still a man hears what he wants to hear

And disregards the rest”

~ Paul Simon, 1970 ~

Today, I’d like to take a “Stroll” with you and talk about the word “affluent,” and how the use of it actually does more harm than good to the communities that are pushing it.

One Town Councillor has said we need more affordable housing here, and there has been talk about it for years. But economic data skews and blocks reality, effectively pricing long-term lower-income residents out of their homes, and making the struggles of even poorer residents invisible to our policymakers. They’d rather build a new library and other infrastructure than help neighbors stay right here at home.

For example, here in Briarhaven, along with our million-dollar lakefront estates and condominiums (that used to be the storekeepers’ homes), we also have not one, but two—dare I say it—USDA Rural Development 62+ apartment complexes RIGHT IN THE VILLAGE, and a “two-story mobile home park” a few miles to our north.

And one of those “trailers” is posted on Zillow right now for $649,900, with an estimated monthly payment of $4,931. But that doesn’t mean that everyone living there at Brookfield Meadows, in one of those “trailer park” townhouses, can even afford to pay that much. Some are renting from relatives for half the median cost of a two-bedroom apartment in Mill House Estates.

And no one’s rent at Maplewood Terrace or Cedar Village is $291 a month. Those places are subsidized—just like the amounts for the renters up in Brookfield Meadows, only it’s the federal government, instead of a relative footing the rest of that bill.

And now, don’t even get me started about Fox Hollow. I bet they hate looking over the creek at all of us alleged crackhead druggies (or whatever it is they call us) over here at Maplewood Terrace, don’t you? Oh, that’s right! Their view is blocked by all that dog poop-infested foliage, thanks to them not placing those bags where they belong. Perhaps the Village and the property owners whose land they are littering should clear out their side of the creekfront, too.

Truth is, the earliest of those houses were only built in 2013. By then, Cedar Village had been here for 31 years, and Maplewood Terrace for 26, and each of them housed some of Briarhaven’s most beloved residents—our neighbors’ aging parents. So which one of these developments is the one who needs to go? We’re not the ones in their backyard. They’re the ones in ours.

That young disabled woman at Maplewood Terrace could be the daughter of a resident of Mill House Estates, whose parents live in a townhouse in Brookfield Meadows, owned by her great-uncle, who lives above a storefront on Hiawassee.

And, I also know that looks can be deceiving. Just as I (legally blind) can “pass” as fully-sighted. The renters at Brookfield Meadows can “pass” as wealthy/affluent, too. But, those of us at Maplewood Terrace aren’t given that same kind of pass. We’re not, because, if we were, neither the Village, nor the Town would be spending all their energy on the affluent.

I understand that Stroll, by their own words, “is the premier publisher of affluent neighborhood magazines, reaching millions of homeowners in upscale communities.” But if vinyl siding companies and roofers can send postcards to all 64 of us at Cedar Village and Maplewood Terrace, as well as our buildings’ managers, they can do something that includes us too.

Otherwise, how can anyone even get to know the people in our community? Their exclusion of us is not the means to a more connected life. It is segregation. And they can’t authentically share neighbors’ stories and photos by misrepresenting and denying that less affluent people live here, too.