Mayor Vincent C. Gray is determined to build 10,000 affordable housing units by 2020 and is already halfway there, but will it be worth it if residents won't or can't buy them without red tape holding them back? The process to buying affordable housing includes proving one's income is low enough to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, attending home-buying training, and more. "The D.C. government and the federal government want to make sure that the subsidies that they're providing are going to people that actually need them," said Sarah Scruggs, director of Advocacy and Outreach of Manna, Inc., a nonprofit affordable housing development organization. After buying her first condo, D.C. resident Marilyn Phillips said, "All of the information they want to gather from you — it can make you feel like why do you need all this information?" Despite one in five Washington residents living at or below the poverty line, many are renting or buying market-rate units to avoid the paperwork. [WaPo; KCUR]
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