Mount Pleasant Magazine 6.4

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able housing is feasible here, determine if there are suitable
locations for such housing and figure out how to encourage
developers to step up to the plate and include affordable hous-
ing units in any future plans they have for the town.
Stokes-Marshall, herself a Mount Pleasant native, said
she believes “affordable housing contributes to our com-
munity’s overall quality of life.”
To that end, she is a proponent of any new moderate-
income housing being located near grocery stores, doctors’
offices and public transit for individuals who can no longer
drive a car.
“This isn’t an African-American issue,” she observed,
“although certainly some African-Americans who already
work here would benefit greatly from affordable housing.”
Affordable housing would also be attractive to young
people just starting out, seniors seeking an opportunity to
downsize and handicapped and special needs individuals
whose financial situation might keep them from living in
more affluent neighborhoods.
“There is no reason,” she said, “why anyone who has
a decent job and who is working hard to support his or
her family should have to pay 60 percent of their income
to put a roof over their family’s heads. Yet that’s exactly
what would be the case if some of the workers who serve
us in the public and private sectors tried to rent or buy in
Mount Pleasant.”
Among the topics the task force will be addressing is
the necessity for education. Stokes-Marshall wants the
deliberations of the task force to be transparent and open
to the public, and she’s hoping that at least one of the
television stations serving the Lowcountry might partner
with the committee and feature reports on “the faces of
affordable housing.”
Another goal of the task force is to reach out to all
developers who build in Mount Pleasant and to the local
financial community to participate in the committee’s fact-
finding mission.
“No matter how thorough our report,” she said, “there
will no doubt be some resistance to our findings, mostly
from NIMBYs (not in my backyard) living close by any
locations we might suggest for affordable housing.”
“But at the end of the day, a true community is com-
posed of a diverse group of people,” she added. “That does
not exist to any significant extent in Mount Pleasant today.
In-town, affordable housing could be one tool to rectify
that imbalance.”
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843.388.6127
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