In September, 2008, the Mt. View Senior Advisory Task Force published its "State of Mt. View Seniors" report that, among other things, indicated that there were about 1000 subsidized units in Mt. View, with about 650 of them allocated to seniors. Some of those senior units have become available since 2000, the date cited in the study in the above article. Even so, most of Mt. View's 9000 or so seniors do not have access to "affordable" senior housing. Given that population projections indicate that Boomers will swell Mt. View's senior portion of its population from about 12% now to about 21% in 20 years, something has to be done about "affordable" housing.

The big problem is that NIMBY is alive and well, although perhaps camouflaged by concerns about too-dense housing and its impact on traffic and city services. We all love the benefits of having more jobs in Mt. View, but it seems we're unwilling to deal with the consequences of having all those new employees drive here to work. Ultimately, we can't afford to have more jobs without also having more housing.

Council member Mike Kasperzak does not understand that it is Mountain View's quality of life which attracts companies and residents. Mountain View is a small city with a population density higher than most other cities in Santa Clara County. If we continue to increase our population density, the quality of life will suffer, thus acting as a deterrent to companies and people who live here. Mountain View will then become a high density, low income slum

If you don't think the homes should be in Mountain View, then why put the jobs here? Surely we have other good uses for the land that don't involve thousands of people driving on the freeway to get here. That's not "high quality of life" for anyone.

Put low income housing in out lying areas like Alviso, no put in MV city limits, it bring many problem, crime, old cars, trash, it no no good.

Who is putting the jobs in Mountain View? I don't think that there is any law or organization requiring companies to locate here. The problem is in looking at Mountain View as a stand alone city which it is NOT. Mountain View is part of a large Metropolitan area. It is simply a matter of how you look at the problem of traffic. I would say the real problem is the lack of good transit systems. Governments don't like to look at it that way because there is no money to be made with transit systems and there is a lot of money to be made with housing.

Looking at the jobs vs housing ratio, you could just as easily say that Los Altos and Los Altos Hills has to get more jobs. Why don't they rezone some land for jobs?