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No one required to live at Friendship Village

Owning something of value comes with a self-imposed responsibility:?To maintain the value requires work and commitment. When someone owns a car, house, boat, etc., they know these things do not take care of themselves. There is time, money and effort involved.

It can be more difficult to maintain something’s value when an owner lets someone else use it or rent it. Human beings tend to take things less seriously when something is not theirs, and owners may have more work to do. But they can protect themselves, as do rental car companies or a landlord.

The same is true in the case of public ownership. A public building or park can be monitored for vandalism. A public housing project can, and should, establish rules for tenants so that facilities are not trashed. Still, it is probably most difficult to maintain things in the case of public ownership. Yet that does not mean the public’s representatives – elected officials and administrators – should resign themselves to inevitable damage or other problems.

Hence we are fully on board with the Fairmont Housing and Redevelopment Authority approving a new resident handbook for Frienship Village this week. The handbook has gone through a process of review, including with the residents at the site. While not everyone agrees with everything, who would expect them to?

We think HRA board member Steve Hawkins summed things up nicely when he said he has to follow federal Housing and Urban Development rules and make decisions that make sense for all residents, not one or two squeaky wheels.

Indeed, if people find the rules so oppressive, they do not have to live at Friendship Village. It’s their choice.

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