Money Talks

You know that old saying that money talks? Well, today money is not just talking, it's shouting, and a whole lot of people aren't listening to what it says.

Fact: some frum communities take a lot of money to live in. Housing costs may be expensive, relative to other communities, taxes of all types may be high, basic services may cost more than they do in other places, and the costs of being frum--shuls and schools--may be expensive relative to other places. Add up all these costs and then look at after tax income and an incontrovertible fact may become clear: there are people who cannot afford to live in these communities. Yeah, so? The unfortunate fact is that there are people who ARE living in these communities who don't have the money to do so. And because they do, they become a drain on the resources of the community. And the more of these people who there are in a community, the harder it becomes for even those who do have the money but are finding it being drained away.

Yes, thanks to the economic downturn, there are people who are finding themselves in financial difficulties who normally would have little problem in affording these more expensive communities. They are hopeful--and so are their communities--that their financial woes will be of a temporary nature. But there are also a whole lot of people who never should have chosen the communities they did because they are never going to have the money needed to just survive there, never mind thrive. Whatever their reasons for choosing these communities, what they did not do was look at the money they had versus the money they would need.

Granted, there are some communities--not exactly cheap to live in but not requiring megabucks either--that have become gentrified. Real estate prices and the concurrent costs of taxes and services have risen so steeply that what was an affordable neighborhood, relatively speaking, no longer is one. There are a few people who suddenly find themselves living in areas that they once could afford but no longer can. But there are also plenty of people choosing these neighborhoods not based on what it costs to live there but based on the frum character of the neighborhood. They are in trouble before the moving truck pulls up to their new living quarters.

There is also this: parents would love for their children to live in the same neighborhood that they do. They'll get to be a part of their grandchildren's lives and see them often. They don't want their kids living in Yuchipitzville somewhere. And yes, there is the non-familial aspect as well: schools in the neighborhood will continue in existence because there will be a steady flow of students coming in, shuls will remain healthy. But established neighborhoods whose pricing is on the high end are the worst places for these young couples to be living. If parents X are in the $250-300K range in earnings and their children are in the $50-100K range at that point in their lives, then how are they living in the same neighborhood?!

There are some established frum communities with a real mix of housing opportunities and schooling opportunities. There are areas of these communities with inexpensive (relatively speaking) housing so young couples first starting out can, with care, afford to live. There are yeshivas in these communities who understand that they have a mixed crowd money wise and are not priced on the highest end. Such communities will have a fairly steady existence pattern--older couples may move out as they retire, couples in the mid-range move up but not out and young couples move in. With care, those on the lowest end of earning capacity can exist in these communities.

What this all boils down to is that THE factor that must be looked at before choosing a community to live in is not the frum character of the neighborhood nor the types of yeshivas available. The first thing must be earning power. If you are in a profession whose earning potential is X then you can't be looking to move to a community where the costs to live are 3 times X. And such communities need to be open and forthright when they look to attract newcomers to move in. They need to say the words "It takes X to live here. If you don't have X this is not the place for you."

These communities also need to open their eyes and face some hard facts: they may not be growing all that fast in the future. They may not be able to expand. Their yeshivas may not have a large influx of students coming in to replace those graduating, just a trickle. In point of fact, some years down the road they may just be a footnote in history: a community that was but whose time ended. Perhaps some of those communities will be able to stem the tide and remain in existence; some will not be able to do so.

But for all of us, we need to remember that money talks, and we need to listen and listen carefully to what it is saying.