To Own Home, Teachers Compete in Essay Contest

My hometown newspaper, the Frederick News Post has this story about a pair of teachers who recently won a contest for $7,500 to be applied to the closing costs of their first home.

With a $7,500 check, Nicolle and Michael Joshua will be able to realize a lifelong dream.
Both 27 years old and teachers in the Montgomery County school system, they won an annual contest run by the Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County

The AHC "Break the Barrier to Home Ownership" program helps people buy homes, basing their eligibility, in part, on an essay contest.

Nicolle, an English teacher in the county since 2002, wrote about her dream of owning a home so she can invest in neighbors, students and the children's friends. More than 150 people sent in essays explaining why they want their own homes.

Congratulations to the Joshua's.

But a larger question is why this couple needed the help in the first place. Of course, people who think teachers need to be paid more will pick up on this story and run with the meme that teacher are so underpaid that they need Affordable Housing assistance to own their own home near where they work. I think the answer lies in a different place, that is the expense of living in Montgomery County, Maryland--the richest and most expensive county in the state. Now obviously, teachers should not have to need to win contests to help them buy a house, but the problem is not teacher salaries, but rather a cost of living in a place that not only needs quality teachers (and pays them pretty well too), but fails to control other costs of living.

The problem is one of priorities for the county. Montgomery County has tried for years to be all things to all people and spends money like water flows through the Amazon River. Instead of focusing on what it must do, protect and educate its citizenry, the county builds massive performing arts complexes, courts big name businesses with massive tax breaks that then must be shouldered by the very same workers who struggle to buy a home in that same county. What does it say about a county when even teachers, who are fairly well paid, cannot even afford a home in the county? Clearly priorities are skewed and likely to remain that way.