Who cares what renters think? Pursuant to guidance provided by Village officials, of those surveyed in a recent study of Village Opinion, only 30% were renters, despite the fact that 52% of our housing units are rentals. Why, exactly was the survey done this way? I attended a joint meeting of the Village Board and School Board to find answers to this question.
At the meeting, this very question was asked. A long-winded explanation was given, which is most accurately characterized by the following direct quote from the consultant hired by the Village.
"The sample should be made up of folks on whom we will build our future."
Wow. Renters? Meet the shaft.
I am not blaming the marketing consultants for this. They were acting in good faith on orders from the Village. During the meeting, the only elected official to express concern about the underrepresentation of renters was School Board member Nancy Bornstein. She aptly pointed out that, like it or not, over 1/2 of our residential units are rental units, and that this does not appear to be changing all that quickly. Yes, renters seem to be here to stay.
Why does it matter that renters were drastically underrepresented? Because, as I have said many times before, renters ARE the future of Shorewood.
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"Today's 27 year-old single grad student is tomorrow's 42 year-old father of two. The 21 year-old waitress will be the 36 year-old CPA and mother of three. If we shove these residents out the back door before they get their feet on the ground, we will have to spend money on fancy marketing programs to attract them back, just like we are right now. "
- The Forum, 7/17/06
"The future of Shorewood depends on how we treat our renters. We need them to stay and have kids and send them to our schools. We need to attract them to drive down our soaring vacancy rate in rental units. We need them to move in en masse, drive up rent, and improve the economic prospect of owning a duplex. We need them to stay and become homeowners. We need renters."
- The Forum, 9/18/06===================================
I am actually very pleased that the Village is undertaking marketing efforts, and pleased to know they are doing marketing research. What irritates me is the way in which renters' opinions were intentionally given less weight than homeowners' opinions. Listening to renters making marketing sense, for all of the reasons I have laid out above. But even more than that, there is a civic issue behind the need to treat everyone's opinion equally.
Renters are citizens too.
