Just a quick pointer to the Post article about how much it costs to live in the DC metro region at “subsistance” levels. The source of the study is by Wider Opportunities for Women and you can read the full report there. All 97 pages of it. Read page 5 to see what all they calculated.
The amount given for the District of Columbia for a family consisting of one adult, assume single mom, an infant and a pre-schooler is $53,634. Kids are at their most expensive before they’re shoved off to school. Daycare for an infant, way more expensive than an out of diapers pre-schooler. But there are other factors that make being self-sufficent AND at the subsistance level in DC expensive.
People can and do live on less because of various programs that cut down on the price of living here. We pretty much know about various housing programs, such as section 8, but in an earlier article in the Post, the number of affordable housing units is dwindling. In my neighborhood alone several homes that were affordable rentals got fixed up and sold, at some point. Before I bought, the crumbly pile of bricks I call home used to be home to a woman and her mentally disabled son. It was affordable when I bought it. But not all houses fixed up were taken off the affordable housing roster. One house, because it was overpriced wound up becoming a rental. A vacant house was “fixed up” and must be affordable because the jobs the residents have are fast food jobs. The house where the resident crackhead stays gets a new paint job everyso often but never gets sold. There are houses on the block that remain in the affordable housing scene, but not as many as when I moved here.
Day: September 14, 2005
TV: Bones
If I didn’t put my notes about the BACA meeting somewhere under a pile of something I would write about that, but alas, no. Instead I write about watching TV.
Nora Bombay called me up and told me to turn the TV to Fox, which was showing the new CSI-Crossing Jordan clone, Bones. Which takes place in DC. Vancouver, DC. One should make bad fake DC shows a drinking game. I suggest diet coke. The fake location shots were bad, laughably bad. We decided that the following show, House, looked more like DC. House had more minorities. DC is sixty-some odd percent black, gives one to reason that there’d be black people in the scene somewhere, speaking or in the background. I’m not even going to go into the fake Arlington, or bad National Mall. I apparently missed the imaginary bridge that goes directly from National Airport in Arlington, VA to SW DC.
Please cheap TV producers if you want to give a DC feel, shoot in DC. Short of that come to the city, get some stock footage, a good editor, and do a lot of close ups. I like NCIS, they seem to do NoVA ok and I have no clue where they shoot.